TheStorm: absolutely false; we just haven't found the system calls yet. Based on the applications that they include with the Prizm, I'm confident we'll eventually uncover some sort of library for floating-point math and all that fun stuff. I still haven't heard back from that Casio representative that I pinged twice via email. I might have to see whom else I might contact...

Indeed, and I am as well among those who are weary of "high-tech" devices for teaching - but we have to face some people whose opinion on the value of the Nspire for teaching is dead set: the Nspire Is Good (TM)

I definitely agree with you there. I very much support using things like calculator programs to support the curriculum and augment it, as well as giving students the chance to explore a little bit of programming as they go, but I don't think it's fair to the students or the material to let the calculator take over the course entirely.

What is the NSpire really offering for education that the z80 and 68k graphing calculators (e.g. TI-84+ and TI-89) do not? I know it has some extra features beyond emulating other calculators, but does it really add anything of substance to the education environment that was not there before? ... My question is, from an education standpoint, why would someone (or an institution) want the Nspire when the other models seem to do quite well. The only thing I'd think of is the newer hardware would and software would mostly have a programming and engineering appeal to it (which is ironically bolted down; but I am putting that point aside in this question)

There are at least two things that the Nspire offers to the education world:

* from a usage POV, the Nspire's document system is arguably better, out of the box, than that of older models. From an implementation POV, analyzing said documents shows that TI spent significant effort throwing a huge amount of inefficiency into the mix: silly proprietary compression+encryption, obnoxious proprietary image and proprietary text representations.

* with some extra equipment (an equipment which is both proprietary and expensive), Nspires and a computer can be networked, which allows teachers to check what students are doing / check the answer in small classroom tests.

Everyone's Mileage Might Vary on thinking whether this is useful / a good thing

Might I point out that with a very small amount of very cheap equipment, TI-84+s and a computer can be networked? I really should pursue more academic CALCnet software to woo teachers...

Sure


Even if you did, you couldn't beat the legion of T3 people praising the Nspire
As a company, TI's goal is to earn money. They don't earn money on reusing old, already sold models for new purposes, but they do on new models and the accompanying proprietary and expensive equipment.

Yes, but if I was a teacher, and I could use my existing calculators with a few hundred dollars of equipment at most to network every calculator in my school, or thousands or tens of thousands plus brand-new calculators for TI's solution. At least in this economic climate, I feel like that might hold some weight, but maybe I'm not being realistic.

Indeed, it's wise not to spend thousands of dollars on proprietary equipment when hundreds of dollars would do the job on old models... but some teachers are convinced, and can convince parents, that newer models, "interactivity" and all those concepts of disputed practical usefulness will help their children succeed... and the parents will cough money.

That's unfortunate. Clearly the solution is to spin Cemetech off into a real company, manufacture slightly more professional hardware, put together some sort of pedagogic background, and sell the CALCnet / globalCALCnet system for more than the hardware cost but far less than TI's options.

...That's not exactly a terrible idea. I know that us members of the TI programming community aren't in it for the money ... However, selling equipment is different, especially if it would benefit both parties (and make it possible) ... and I'm not certain one needs to have an actual business entity to DO business; but of course this is all hypothetically speaking.

... But shoot, why the heck not use your skills to market some kind of business, making hardware & software solutions at a very fair price?

Well, I would argue that once you do business you then have a business entity, but the more information schools can get, the better.

Fortunately, my school has seen the light: They used to have viewscreens, CBL/CBRs and such, from when 82s were the calc to use. Now, they have these camera systems which are decently priced, which they put their calcs underneath, and the chem teachers just have us use normal thermometers for experiments

Believe it or not, the TI navigator isn't really that useful, especially since the majority of math-related concepts on TI calculators are supported, largely, by the OS. Hence, Teachers don't need students 'synced' to them with subprograms and specific variables.

Maybe I'm missing something about the navigator, but that's what I see.

However, that's not to say teachers don't buy them XD I think a school would jump for your system over TI's, if you had it look professional enough and be directed at education. Go for it! I forsee many viruses coming from smart kids though, that hack into the other calcs.

Ooh, what if you made calcNet have clustering capability, so large calculations would be faster with a network? That'd be cool.

Actually, clustered computation has long been on my to-do list. I would love to implement that, just for the fun of it, even though other devices could run light-speed circles around the calcs' computation speeds.

I'm glad to hear that about the TI-Navigator; since I don't see much about it in the community, I more or less assumed it was not that widely used. If it were more widely-used, I would think more community members would be interested in figuring out nifty things to do with it.

Well, keep in mind that it's around 99% student calc users that come here. Hence, also, the lack of interest in viewscreens. (I know there's a little) I would be surprised to see a TI-Navigator end up in a modder's hands.

An excellent point as well (also, "we are the 1%," perhaps?). I know that BrandonW for one has an interest in viewscreens, but I suppose if we're the 1%, he's the 1% of the 1%.

BTW, something I've been meaning to ask for several days...
I know that the Prizm is allowed in a significant number of standardized tests where the Nspire is allowed as well. However, does the Prizm have something similar to the Press-To-Test anti-feature ?

If it doesn't, then it means that neither PTT-type lockdown, nor even any kind of technical measures intended to try and (fail to...) prevent usage of native code (but failing at that task, as usual) is required to get a model approved for most standardized tests...

According to Tech-Powered Math, which the Wikipedia article on Casio calculators cites:

I see no official Casio source that repeats that, but I believe I remember the box for my Prizm saying the same. I'll check the box when I get to school.

There is an option that deletes all add-ins on the calculator (of course, deleting individual add-ins is also possible), which might be intended to function as an option to prevent native code, since the only way to native run code is add-ins (or, IIRC, abusing the link protocol). Some of Casio's features that might be a problem on tests (like Geometry and Picture Plot) are add-ins instead of being part of the OS, possibly so that they are easy to remove if needed.

I see, thanks for the information

Since it's a (small) extra complication to build that into the OS, we can think that a requirement for approval in standardized tests is that the calculator's functionality can be degraded somewhat, if needed...

Lionel, that seems to be the general thing that the calculator manufacturers have chosen to do in order to be more acceptable to standardized testing companies, but I can't find any specific rule that lists that. As far as I know, any calculator acceptable on the SAT, for example, must:

1) Lie flat (no clamshells)
2) Have numbers shorter than 1"
3) Not have a QWERTY keyboard
4) Have no wireless communication ability