The TI-82

I was in the Dollar Tree one day recently and saw the most amazing little workbook- An Introduction to the TI-82 Graphing Calculator. I could hardly believe my eyes! I scooped it up and brought it home. Why? Well because as you can see, we have a TI-82 Graphing Calculator. Of course.

It was part of the package when I participated in the Maryland Governor's Academy for Science and Technology way back in the summer of 1995. I spent the summer living at Towson University outside Baltimore learning all kinds of current trends in what else- science, math and technology so that I could take it back to my science classroom. Such a great program for classroom teachers (with a handsome stipend) and we got to keep all the cool stuff we encountered that summer. That was the same program that saw me spending the night at the Maryland Science Center. Let me just say that sleeping near the model of the Hubble Space Telescope was an awesome plan except that the NASA channel is stinkin' loud and on all night!

We had a whole two days of classes on how to use the TI-82 with our students and it has all these cool hook ups to be seen on a classroom projector, etc. The coolest part of course is the calculator's ability to graph equations and data sets of any kind. You can program the Ti-82 as well which I found rather handy in my graduate level educational research class during the statistics portion. I'm just sayin'. I had an undergraduate statistics class, but since most education folks aren't too oriented toward math, the prof let us use our formulas from a paper. I was able to do one better than that and the TI-82 just uses the numbers you put in and makes life a dream! And all you have to do is know how to do it.

The Plan- to teach E10 a thing or two about the TI-82 this year. I don't think he'll be graphing conic sections just yet, but he'll be able to enjoy some simple x,y coordinates. Yes?

How fun is this? You guys really need to get one!

The quest to introduce living math is raging on. You should see the crate full of books I have related to math fun and alternative ways to introduce math concepts. Math on the Level is our new program of choice. And after our van receives its numerous repairs, we'll be investing in it. Until then I'm totally on my own because I'm leaving Horizons behind. I still have the whole program and I can use it for a scope and sequence, but I'm getting out from underneath it! The math journal is going to be the spot where the kids record their math adventures. More on this wreckless abandonment in the future...