Re: Ti-83 or What?????
[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: Ti-83 or What?????
<rahusain@EROLS.KOM> writes:
> You will die in college if you even try to depend on the calculator
> for anything more than the four basic functions. Expect colleges to
> not allow you to use any calculator.
in response to the following from willysguy@aol.com:
> Is the TI-83 a good Graphing Calculator that will help me through
> College level calculus and beyond? Is it worth buying a TI-89. I have
> heard the good and bad about both of them. Where is the best place to
> get them- price.
Actually, students who arrive at college without calculator-related
understandings are at a serious disadvantage. Every fall quarter we have to
struggle with a portion of the entering students who were not encouraged to (or
were discouraged from) employ graphing calculators in their math studies in
high school, and now have to catch up on a "crash" basis. There are important
understandings that need to be developed, new ways of looking at things,
territory that can _only_ be properly explored in an interactive electronic
environment. Compared to a few decades back, students should be a year or two
further along in their mathematical thinking when they arrive at college
nowadays. This "jump" will increase as more powerful, symbolic calculators
such as the TI-89 come into widespread use at earlier points in the curriculum.
The original question relates to whether the TI-83 is still a good enough
calculator for, say, the first year of calculus, or whether it would be smart
to invest in a TI-89 today. That's a tough question to answer. If a person had
the money to spare I myself would advise getting _both_ and learning the ins
and outs of each of them. They are really like different tools for different
purposes. The college-level calculus curriculum is slowly adapting to address
the kind of issues that come up if you are working in a graphing-calculator
environment (e.g. getting a really firm grip on how functions combine and
compose, and learning the special properties of such bread-and-butter functions
as logarithmic, exponential, and circular functions, as well as how these
functions change and accumulate -- the proper classical study of calculus). A
TI-83 is a wonderful tool to use in this environment.
The curriculum is going to have to change a lot more to make proper use of
calculators such as the TI-89, and this is not going to happen overnight. If
one has an 89, one should be _using_ its special powers, and heading into deep
waters. Before calculators, a lot of the secondary curriculum dealt with
learning to _compute_ efficiently with pencil and paper. The market for this
has disappeared, and attention has shifted away from mere acquisition of rote
computational skills. If one had a time machine and could bring a good modern
graphing calculator back to sit in high school math classrooms of the 50's,
one wouldn't learn very much useful sitting there. Much of the traditional
curriculum in introductory calculus courses similarly dealt with acquisition of
rote skill in _symbolic_ computation, such as grinding out formulas for
derivatives and integrals. The market for this sort of rote skill is also
disappearing as symbolic electronic computation becomes cheaper and cheaper.
But the curriculum has to change within the culture, and this takes time. A
fair amount of the calculus courses taught today still place major value on
learning formulas and methods for differentiation and integration. Enrolling in
such a course and using a TI-89 or equivalent to avoid the hard work of
chugging through the algebra on paper would be a mistake. If this is the
instructor's agenda, then he or she certainly has the right to ban the use of
the calculator in the course. Using a TI-83 to explore and support the
conceptual underpinnings of the course, however, should be of significant
benefit.
That's why I say it's a tough call. If you are buying a calculator now while
planning to attend college next year, then you simply cannot predict what kind
of calculator will best suit your needs in that environment. Either save your
money till next year, or buy _some_ calculator now and use it like crazy this
year to get your value out of it and be prepared for the possibility of an
additional purchase next year.
RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623
>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<