Cemetech and T^3 International 2013: Day 1
Published by KermMartian 11 years, 7 months ago (2013-03-09T03:59:59+00:00) | Discuss this article

Today was the first full day of Texas Instruments' T3, and from 7am to 10pm it was a full and fun day of calculators. Shaun McFall and I (and Adrien Bertrand, as thoroughly reported on our affiliate TI-Planet!) have been hard at work learning and having a good time, and throughout the day, we have been scribing the lectures, sessions, and meetings we have attended. The coverage will continue through the next three days, and it will likely take another day or two before a final recap arrives. Be sure to watch our T3 2013 liveblogging thread, where we are keeping track of events as close to realtime as internet access and actually paying attention to sessions allows. Among the excellent highlights from today:
  • Introductions and welcome from Melendy Lovett and Gayle Mujica, and a keynote address from astronaut and NASA Associate Administrator for Education, Leland D. Melvin. He talked about how he became an astronaut, offered some thoughts on the present and future of STEM education, and shared entertaining anecdotes.
  • Our first session of the day, "Color on the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition Graphing Calculator: Creatively and Effectively Utilize its Power in Your Mathematics Classroom", with Tom Reardon.
  • Lunch of (oddly enough) Philly cheesesteaks and fries.
  • A post-lunch meeting with Dale Philbrick of Texas Instruments, to whom I am very grateful for discussing a host of important calculator- and community-relevant issues with me. The full set of details is in the liveblogging thread, but here are the highlights:
    • Where TI is going next with the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus family, the TI-Nspire, their Apps for iPad, and the TI-89/TI-92 family.
    • My experiences using the preview TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition they generously sent me, including various bugs and useability issues, to which they were very receptive.
    • TI's push to create more content for teachers to use across all their product lines.
    • When the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition and TI-Connect 4.0 will be available (hint: Back-to-School at latest and "soon", respectively).
    • Rumors of web-based and/or offline "Exam Calculators" emulators made by TI
  • Another TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition session with Margo Lynn Mankus, highlighting other math features of the new calculator.
  • An evening of finger food and karaoke, plus an introduction from Mayim Bialik and an enjoyable talk with John Powers.
Tomorrow will be another full day, including many planned sessions, not the least of which will be my own, "Teaching Programming Concepts with the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus Graphing Calculators". Be sure to read our full T3 thread and stick with us through the weekend for more updates.



Permalink

Advertisement