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Emulating a TI-83+ class calculator

You seem to miss the point. An emulator makes it much easier to teach a roomful of students, each with a calculator. See the sub-title, "Could be very handy for teaching". 😀

Edit: also I'll bet it would be easy to have a CD with emulator and ROM on it to take along (which of course would probably only be legal if you own the calculator in the first place, but it's a lot more replaceable).
 
Originally posted by: computeerrgghh
They have this thing that you hook up to a modified 83 that projects it
Click to expand...

I'm aware of it, but it's one more piece of hardware to buy, store and fail. I taught a CC class with the calculator and the CC didn't have the projector -- it would have ruled on lab days to have the emulator.

Edit: also I would think that an emulator would show the buttons -- very useful again for teaching (maybe one of those projector thingies does, though I doubt it shows more than screen output).
 
Eh, I don't know about teaching. I'm in college - in math classes here they try to teach us math, not how to operate calculators.
 
Originally posted by: notfred
Eh, I don't know about teaching. I'm in college - in math classes here they try to teach us math, not how to operate calculators.
Click to expand...

QFT.

It'd be useful for High School level classes MAYBE, but not really for college. Most of the kids in an advanced class are likely there because they want to be, and will be able to figure out how to use the calculator on their own, or with very little basic instruction from the teacher.

Besides, I'd be supprised if schools didn't get breaks on buying the projector systems. I know several HS teachers who used them at my old HS.
 
Originally posted by: BobDaMenkey
Originally posted by: notfred
Eh, I don't know about teaching. I'm in college - in math classes here they try to teach us math, not how to operate calculators.
Click to expand...

QFT.

It'd be useful for High School level classes MAYBE, but not really for college. Most of the kids in an advanced class are likely there because they want to be, and will be able to figure out how to use the calculator on their own, or with very little basic instruction from the teacher.

Besides, I'd be supprised if schools didn't get breaks on buying the projector systems. I know several HS teachers who used them at my old HS.
Click to expand...

Haven't been to a community college lately, have you? Or a "remedial" course at a regular college?

The projectors are ultimately not very expensive. Departmental inertia is usually the problem when it comes to these things.

I'm surprised at how negatively you all view the idea of emulating on a PC. I'd think it's a very handy tool.
 
Originally posted by: notfred
Eh, I don't know about teaching. I'm in college - in math classes here they try to teach us math, not how to operate calculators.
Click to expand...

I never had a graphing calculator until I taught a low-level math class. I was actually shocked when teaching a more advanced class (junior/senior OR) that students "needed" their calculators to graph some very basic stuff. Kids these days... 😉
 
Originally posted by: BobDaMenkey
Originally posted by: notfred
Eh, I don't know about teaching. I'm in college - in math classes here they try to teach us math, not how to operate calculators.
Click to expand...

QFT.

It'd be useful for High School level classes MAYBE, but not really for college. Most of the kids in an advanced class are likely there because they want to be, and will be able to figure out how to use the calculator on their own, or with very little basic instruction from the teacher.

Besides, I'd be supprised if schools didn't get breaks on buying the projector systems. I know several HS teachers who used them at my old HS.
Click to expand...

I'd say it's the other way around. Many high school math problems can be done simply by pushing numbers and variables into a TI-89, whereas in college I've taken classes where it was necessary to use a calc in order to figure out some graphs or otherwise do computations.
 
I really dislike how dependant classes are getting on high-end calculators. Back in highschool we barely used them, the school had a number of them available and we pulled them out maybe 5 or 6 times a year, up until the advanced calc classes when we used them a little more often.

But the past few years I've been talking to friends who have kids in middle school up to maybe 9th grade, and they're saying that some teachers are requiring kids to have the calculators now, and the schools aren't willing to help supply them. Since when does a 7th grader need a $90 calculator for basic algebra?
 
Originally posted by: Sphexi
I really dislike how dependant classes are getting on high-end calculators. Back in highschool we barely used them, the school had a number of them available and we pulled them out maybe 5 or 6 times a year, up until the advanced calc classes when we used them a little more often.

But the past few years I've been talking to friends who have kids in middle school up to maybe 9th grade, and they're saying that some teachers are requiring kids to have the calculators now, and the schools aren't willing to help supply them. Since when does a 7th grader need a $90 calculator for basic algebra?
Click to expand...

Learning to use tech to solve math problems is very important for the real world so I'm in favor of the calculators, but I honestly think it is often overdone. Being able to dsiplay a calculator emulator would making teaching it more efficient thus leave more time for real instruction.
 
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