Interesting article on the TI-84 and the graphing calculator market

[robert rozee]

i believe that a 3-tiered approach is the way forward:

1) no electronic calculating devices allowed. this is for when teaching children basic arithmetic - times tables, long division and multiplication, addition and subtraction. the tools allowed would be pencil and paper, ruler, and a printed multiplication table as needsbe.

2) basic scientific, non-graphical and no significant programmability. such calculators would include the original FX-82, HP-20S, HP-15C, FX-31, etc. excluded would be anything with more than a few hundred bytes of memory. this would be the calculator that the student takes forward into their working life.

this calculator would be used in teaching trigonometry, engineering maths, and anything else where a numeric answer is desired. alongside this, students would be taught the basics of symbolic maths - integration, differentiation, as well as newtonian mechanics, matrix theory, etc.

3) advanced symbolic maths. the school to provide the necessary tools in theory, most likely an application running on a tablet or notebook PC. the student is then taught how the computer can be used to solve problems that previously had been too complicated to solve. this 3rd tier would contain material that very few students would make use of outside of the educational environment.


our overall goal is, over time, to displace the 4-function calculator in the general population, replacing it with the basic scientific. joe bloggs, the average citizen, would be familiar with using his basic scientific calculator to solve trig. problems and the likes, a major step up from the average person of today.


just my opinion,
rob :-)