I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I need some help with a speech I'm giving on Monday for my college speech class, and given my choice of topic this seemed the best place to ask. For the class I need to give two 5-6 minute speeches, one informative, and the other persuasive, both on the same topic so they can share a common body of research. I chose TI calculators for my topic, since it's relevant to an audience of college students that were just required to buy one, and because I can easily establish credibility as having collected and worked on several of them.

Specifically, I want to describe how TI became the dominant manufacturer of calculators used in education for the informative, then later on in the persuasive explain how this has chained students to overpriced and outdated technology, while locking them out of cheaper and better modern alternatives.

From one article I found I got the basic idea down. TI had an early lead, spent a lot teaching teachers to appreciate and use their calculators, and got cozy with textbook publishers. I know they invented the hand-held calculator but I don't know how the graphing calculator came about. I know other competitors beat them to the market, so how did TI's become the standard? How exactly did they persuade teachers that calculators would be a benefit to math classes, and how did they get them to use TI calculators over their competitors? How exactly have they reached out to teachers? What kinds of instructional materials do they hand out? Do they send free stuff to teachers and administrators? Do they have conferences? How did they establish their relationship with textbook manufacturers?

If anyone could point me in the direction of some articles that would help me answer these questions (they could even be ones you wrote) I'd appreciate it. It doesn't have to be anything scholarly, I just need to be able to cite it MLA-style. I could also do an interview on irc or something if one of you is knowledgeable enough and has the time.

I have classes in the morning tomorrow but I'll be dedicating the afternoon to research, and I'll check back here periodically for replies.

I'll throw Kerm under the bus here, as he knows a lot about how TI does outreach and marketing. He's perfectly citable in an interview. Some may point at me for the history of calculators, but I don't know much about how TI went about selling their products. You can also look at Datamath, they have an archive of TI's press releases somewhere.

Anybody have anything else? I thought there would be more material available when I chose this topic.

EDIT- the biggest hole in my understanding right now is how TI calculators became the standard, when other manufacturers hit the market first. Was it all marketing?

I think a lot of it is which markets various manufacturers chose to pursue. HP still has a stranglehold on what's left of the engineering market (basically users who can't afford Matlab or need something more portable).

DrAHelper shared a useful paper written by some Dartmouth students that answers most of my questions. I'll leave it here for posterity:

http://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/ron-adner/Texasmini.pdf

It's not the deepest source but it's deeper than the education.ti.com about page, and between the two I have a pretty good idea how to tell this story.

I apologize for the delay in responding; you caught me at a bad time, academically-speaking. CVSoft is right to throw me under the bus, as I've been working with TI a fair bit lately, and have a reasonable perspective of the arguments on both sides. From showing at Maker Faire and managing Cemetech, I've heard all the arguments against TI's products, business model, and price point, and from TI I've heard the counterarguments. As a jumping-off point, this interview with TI's current president, Dr. Peter Balyta, may be a useful primary source:
https://www.cemetech.net/news.php?year=2014&month=3&id=663

That's certainly one opinion, but be sure you investigate the role that teachers play in this puzzle: many teachers have even refused to switch to the TI-Nspire line because they're too comfortable with the TI-83+/84+ line (that's why the TI-84+CSE and now TI-84+CE exist!) Calculators are absolutely priced way above what they cost to make, but there are mitigating factors, like what TI spends on professional development, giving free hardware to underprivileged districts, etc.

I'll definitely include that interview in my research for the persuasive. I haven't ruled out taking TI's side, but even if I don't, I definitely need to know what exactly I'm arguing against.

In the meantime, I've finished writing my informative speech. I couldn't have done it without that key source from DrAHelper, and the tip about Datamath from CVSoft, so thanks for your help.

If you guys want to take a look at it, give me feedback, let me know if everything is accurate, you can find it on my OneDrive here.

I'm curious how this worked out, DShiznit. Please give us the scoop!

Sorry for the delay. It went pretty well. Grade-wise it was an 89, as I forgot to preview my main points, I went over time by 30 seconds, and there were a few other minor flaws. But the class loved it. Virtually every student had used at least 3 of the 4 calculators I showed off in the introduction. As one student put it "I didn't know I could feel calculator nostalgia."

Now I have to write a persuasive on the topic for next week, so I'm starting with that interview to get a solid grasp of the arguments.

Nice! good job! And good luck.

Heh, nice! I'm glad everything worked out for you. Out of curiosity, what calcs did you talk about?

Haha, that's excellent. Congratulations on what sounds like a good debate and a solid grade.

Best of luck; we're still here to help if you need any feedback (and sorry that none of us got to review your material before the debate!).

It's not exactly a debate, although the persuasive speech is not entirely unlike one. While I'll be the only one speaking, I'll still have to identify and answer any possible critiques of my arguments the audience may form in their minds.

Can someone (with a TI-84+ CE or CSE) do me a favor? I want to see what this function looks like in a standard window on a CE:

(X - 7) / (X^2 + 2X - 35)

On the TI-84+ SE the second Asymptote isn't fully graphed.

EDIT- also the function (5-3X)^(1/6) - 2 has an incorrect end point on the TI-84+ I would be interested in seeing if this is still the case on the CE.

Here's the (X - 7) function:

And the (5-3X) function:


Hope this helps!