1) The digital tool the I have used most actively in the classroom and during tutoring is the Texas Instruments TI 84 Plus Silver Graphing Calculator. http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/productDetail/us_ti84pse.html
2) The main features are quite extensive. Aside from using basic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; there are countless things you can do with topics such as trigonometry, probability and statistics, conics, graphing, summation, economics and finance, logarithms, imaginary numbers, radicals etc. There are various interfaces and modes that can be used to best suit the requirements of the teacher or student using the calculator.
3) The level of difficulty ranges from easy to difficult. Depending on the necessary use, learning all the features of this technology could take an extensive amount of time. Even as a math enthusiast, I find myself learning new things about this calculator on regular basis.
4) There is ample classroom application for this tool. The image of the calculator screen can be projected using a USB cord connected to a projector or downloaded from the Texas Instruments website. As education moves more openly into technology, students have come to rely tremendously on their calculator and therefore should be educated to use it to its full potential. I use it personally to have students check that their graphs or operational math is correct. After learning about the theory behind logarithms, and probability and statistics, the calculator is an excellent tool to save time and frustration from have to do tedious and complicated problems.
5) In the mathematics classroom, the tool is definitely worth learning. The curriculum is quite rigorous and proficient use with the calculator saves valuable time. I would argue that this instrument benefits are becoming more numerous as the calculator industry adds features that deal with topics in the natural sciences including chemistry and physics.
Have you had a chance to work with the TI-Nspire system? I attended an introductory seminar held by TI back in February, and it has a lot of useful features. It has 2 keyboards, one of which is the same as the TI-83/84 keyboard, so students could use it as one of those. The other is updated with more functions, and it has a computer algebra system built in. Definitely a cool thing to check out if you haven't yet!
ReplyDeleteLike you said this is a great tool to have in the mathematics classroom. It's features are endless. I was at a school which had an entire class dedicated to better learning this calculator. I think every math teacher should know how to use this calculator inside and out so they can assist students.
ReplyDeleteJackie: I have not had the chance to work with the TI-Nspire but I know a bit about it. I am familiar with the two keyboards. I am hoping that the school that I finally end up in has accesibility to these calculators.
ReplyDeleteTim: I have spent some classes exploring the uses of the calculators. It does help students when they are familiar with the features. I agree, math teachers should have an "inside and out" knowledge of the calculators.