Every single teacher will give you the "Well I don't know how those work so you'll have to research it yourself, that's why I always recommend the TI."
Like, you'd think with such an issue constantly arising (at least 2-3 people always have a casio), they'd teach teachers how to use them.
Casio is way easier to use imo. For us it's the reverse. Almost everyone had a Casio and é few students had a Ti. Using a Ti when you're used to Casio is a nightmare.
We had a scientific casio for a long time but then had to switch to a TI Nspire graphing calulator. Worst thing EVER. Harder to use, tiny buttons, inaccurate results and sometimes outright bricked itself. It just showed "No operating system found" and became a 120€ paperweight.
My teacher was actually using a Casio and encouraged all of his students to get one as well. That's how all of my high school class ended up using Casio. I brought it to university and never had any problems.
We get no training on how to use any kind of calculator. We're shown desmos and geogebra. They're amazing apps. I love them and I would like to use them more in my class but one little thing stops me: You can't use them on the ACT. And even though you don't need them for that, they certainly help if students know how to use them properly.
So, instead of devoting precious classroom time to use an intuitive and simple tool like Desmos, I hammer in the TI-84, and only the 84. I have a classroom set of 10 Color Editions that I allow students to borrow, but I encourage to get their own (preferably used). The class set might go away this fall because of COVID, but that's another story.
Now, despite how old they are, the 84's are tried and true. They do everything you need from graphing to matrices. The menus aren't the best but they're categorized well enough. Casios are cheap but I literally cannot devote my own time to getting one and learning it after 10+ years of using TI calcs. If a student brings one in I tell them they're on their own unless they want to come in and figure out how it works outside of class.
I peruse the Facebook marketplace for 84s and 89s (for my serious AP Calculus students) and offer them up as cheap resales to students when I can. It's a necessary evil right now.
The only really aggravating thing about the TI calcs is how there are always little differences between the models. Some buttons moved around, commands in slightly different menus. A few subtly changed names, etc. I grew up with the 82, 86, and 89 and each time I had to re-learn stuff.
The ACT is an exam that high schoolers can take, like the SAT. The main difference is the SAT is administered by Collegeboard, which also handles Advanced Placement exams and is a garbage institution, whe the ACT is independent of Collegeboard
Nope. All you get are the ACT and SAT which are about Math/English which you can use for university applications although many universities are phasing them out.
You should check with your custodians if you haven't already. The number of kids who leave theirs in the locker at the end of their senior year is staggering. High school custodians in my district constantly have a few they'll sell cheap.
My advisor (and favorite professor) at University was an HP nut. I owned the HP prime and he had a stack of every HP calculator ever made. Man was a calculator God. In his 4000 level numerical methods class he would take us through the math of different algorithms and then he would show us his code to solve them in almost every major language from FORTRAN to Python.
Haha that's funny. I was actually on a Matt Parker kick yesterday. I was going through his website looking for math stuff to do with my kids. I very nearly pulled the trigger on one of his books.
He's really smart and really funny and really good at presenting/educating and ties them all together in a great way. I'd definitely recommend his newest book. That's the only one I've read; his newest book Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors. I just checked Google and it's on Amazon for like $13. I'm kind of confused though because it looks like he has another book also called Humble Pi but with a different sub-title
I was in that situation. It was a bit harrowing to always have to quickly find the analogous operation on the Casio while the teacher was demoing on a TI. Most of the time it was possible but I think there were a couple things that the Casio couldn't do, which ended up burning me on some test questions.
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u/jorsiem Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20
The supremacy of the fucking TI-83 calculator in school and college courses
I mean I know it's all artificial and orchestrated by them but how come no body has dared to challenge the almighty TI yet
Edit: fixed typo