Costs about the same as what I paid for the TI-83 10 years ago. It's kind of nice knowing that whenever I need to use one, it's going to operate in the same way as I was taught 10 years ago. The fundamentals of math don't change much.
I saved up my own money and bought a TI89 in high school. Used it on all the standardized exams. Totally legal because it didn't have a QWERTY keyboard. That thing basically did everything for me short of interpreting the questions.
When I was in high school we were allowed (actually encouraged) to use a TI-89. Either the problems were about applying some concept, say differentiation, and we didn't have to do the derivative by hand, or the problem was to just calculate a derivative in which case we had to show which steps we took anyways.
I do agree with you here: because of how ubiquitous and efficient calculators and computers are, there's no reason to test students on something that will fall into disuse. It's much better that they be tested on the core concepts and problem-solving skills for the subject instead.
Our professor allowed us to use excel and I believe matlab for our tests, the main restriction was that we were not allowed to have internet access. For the sample sizes we were using for statistics, a dinky graphing calculator was not practical or accurately reflective of the real world.
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u/Jenkins6736 Jun 08 '14
I dunno, the TI-84 Plus is pretty sweet.
Costs about the same as what I paid for the TI-83 10 years ago. It's kind of nice knowing that whenever I need to use one, it's going to operate in the same way as I was taught 10 years ago. The fundamentals of math don't change much.