Re: TI-92

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Re: TI-92

Jerome Hanson writes:

> .  If the kids have these calcs too early, they'll never fully
> comprehend the basis of problem solving techniques.

We let students have pencil and paper as early as they want to,
despite the fact that resort to the digital algorithms that p&p
support tends to kill the understanding and number sense that
used to be needed when people only had ruder tools (come on,
multiply 98 by 69 in your head, in five seconds or less -- with just
a little practice it can be done easily).

But there's a whole lot of stuff you can get at with p&p that you
would never tackle at all if you had to use mental computation or
an abacus.  So we put up with this loss.

And there's a heck of a lot more stuff that can be gotten at when
you have a good calculator in hand that you would never touch if
you only had pencil and paper -- I believe that we are just
discovering some of this terrritory as people push the limits of
calculator use.  It doesn't bother me that the average person has
no idea how you would perform a long division or extract a square
root with an abacus (yes, it _can_ be done), and I don't think in a
few more years that anyone will be seriously bothered that the
average person does not get taught the p&p methods to perform
these calculations.  It's time to move up to new levels of
understanding.  Nowadays, for example,  it is perfectly feasible to
teach ideas about functions and limits and manipulation of arrays
at what would once have been considered a ridiculously early age...

RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623

>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<
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