Texas Instruments, the company behind some of the most popular student graphing calculators, released a new version of its TI-Nspire line of calculators, called the TI-Nspire CX. The new calculator offers a number of improvements over previous brands, featuring 3-D graphing, a full-color display, and a rechargeable battery. A computer-like interface allows students to create and store documents as they would on a real computer, and a mousepad—much like those on laptop computers—allows them to interact with their calculators in a whole new way.
Sophomore Reid Ferguson bought a TI-Nspire CX earlier this year, and uses it in both of his math classes. He said about the new features, “Once you get a basic mental map of the operating system, it can do almost anything you ask it to.” Math teacher Ms. Chinyen Chuo noted that “many 9th graders purchased this calculator during the first quarter, and many of them have already figured out the basic functionalities of the calculator.”
Freshman Elaine Lin, however, felt differently. She lost her TI-Nspire CX that she won at National Mathcounts (a middle-school-math competition), and said that she wouldn’t buy another if she had to, stating, “First, it’s expensive. Second, I don’t know how to use it. Third, my [current] calculator isn’t broken.” These calculators are certainly not cheap—Texas Instruments lists them on their website for $150 each, and the learning curve involved has confused others as well. Ferguson commented, “It was a bit bewildering at first, with all the new functions available.” Yet Chuo reassured potential users of the calculator, and said, “It is quite intuitive once users realize that the calculator is designed with a computer interface in mind.”
This computer interface is a core part of the new calculator. According to Ferguson, one can “save graphs, calculations, and more as documents, connect it to your computer and transfer the documents.”
As far as education goes, some teachers like Chuo have begun to use it in their classes. Calling it “an excellent tool for learning and exploring…mathematical concepts,” she has also held training sessions for other teachers, where, as she said, “teachers [got] together so we could all learn together.”
There were even plans for the school to buy discounted Npire calculators and sell them to students at a reduced price, but according to Ms. Chuo, “the school decided that we can’t really do this since we [are] not a business entity and we do not have a business license.”
While some students, Ferguson included, feel that “the cool features definitely mitigate the price,” teachers like Ms. Chuo, feel that the price is too high for what is offered. Freshman Rachel Jankech bought a TI-Nspire CX at the beginning of the school year, and felt that “[the extra features] were worth the extra price.”
And, as a first for the Texas Instruments lineup, the calculator features a full-color display, which Ferguson called “beautiful.” He elaborated, saying, “The higher definition makes the quality of the graphs exponentially [pun probably intended] better than the standard calculators. It really makes graph analysis much easier.”
These calculators offer powerful problem-solving capabilities, leading students like Lin to exclaim that “[the calculator is] so fancy it can answer basically anything!” Yet, the calculators, Ms. Chuo stressed, are “learning tools.” She emphasized, “Only by understanding the mathematics can a student use any calculator to its full advantage.”