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Calculator rant
(I was going to write a con report for concussion, but I'm still too sleepy from a bug Henry and I have been down with for the last couple of days)
This isn't the calculator rant that you might expect...
Sure, I'm all for mental arithmetic and I try and teach my pupils to use it before they reach for the calculator (they NEED to learn how to estimate to know if they have a sensible answer after pushing all those buttons); however, the real rant is that most kids don't actually know how to use their calculators.
I've just watched a lad type in a division. After getting the result from that, he cleared the screen and typed the number in again in order to work out the arc sin.
He hadn't realised that he could use the on-screen value as the input for his next calculation. (He was making this mistake in other calculations as well.)
In addition to the above, he didn't know if there was a memory function on his calculator and had no idea how to use one.
Just to make life even more fun, I couldn't find the memory function either! The wretched gadget had so many functions (most of which were totally irrelevent to GCSE level that it was difficult to find the things that were actually useful.
I think parents ought to be specificaly warned NOT to buy a fancy calculator. All the kids need at GCSE is trig functions, pi, standard form notation, x to the power of y, basic four functions, a memory (two if we're really generous) and brackets. And it might well aid their understanding of BODMAS if they had to manage without the brackets...
I've got one young boy with a fully graphic calculator. He hasn't a clue how to use any of the fancy stuff and doesn't need it in any case. But the fancy stuff gets in the way of being able to do basic math. There's too many buttons and too many functions per button.
I do most of my calculator work on a four function calcuator with big buttons, one memory and a square root. It does 95% of what I need. I only get out the scientific calculator (25 years old and still working) when I need to do trigonometry.
This isn't the calculator rant that you might expect...
Sure, I'm all for mental arithmetic and I try and teach my pupils to use it before they reach for the calculator (they NEED to learn how to estimate to know if they have a sensible answer after pushing all those buttons); however, the real rant is that most kids don't actually know how to use their calculators.
I've just watched a lad type in a division. After getting the result from that, he cleared the screen and typed the number in again in order to work out the arc sin.
He hadn't realised that he could use the on-screen value as the input for his next calculation. (He was making this mistake in other calculations as well.)
In addition to the above, he didn't know if there was a memory function on his calculator and had no idea how to use one.
Just to make life even more fun, I couldn't find the memory function either! The wretched gadget had so many functions (most of which were totally irrelevent to GCSE level that it was difficult to find the things that were actually useful.
I think parents ought to be specificaly warned NOT to buy a fancy calculator. All the kids need at GCSE is trig functions, pi, standard form notation, x to the power of y, basic four functions, a memory (two if we're really generous) and brackets. And it might well aid their understanding of BODMAS if they had to manage without the brackets...
I've got one young boy with a fully graphic calculator. He hasn't a clue how to use any of the fancy stuff and doesn't need it in any case. But the fancy stuff gets in the way of being able to do basic math. There's too many buttons and too many functions per button.
I do most of my calculator work on a four function calcuator with big buttons, one memory and a square root. It does 95% of what I need. I only get out the scientific calculator (25 years old and still working) when I need to do trigonometry.
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What's your opinion on RPN? I have both a Casio (which has a handy base conversion feature) and various old HP RPN calculators around, and I tend to use whichever is closest to hand.
I'm sure somebody told me when I went to Uni that it would be essential to have a graphical calculator, but I can't recall ever once using the graphing feature in anger. Most of the stuff we did was calculus, and I never was much good at that (I scored very well on the practical subjects and poorly on the mathematical subjects - due to all the calculus - and in the end finished up with a 2-2).
The calculator built into my mobile phone is annoying. It has most of the features you commonly need, but it's a hassle to get to them because of the limited number of buttons.
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There's too many buttons and too many functions per button.
This is true for all modern electronic devices. I was trying to sort out a problem with my DVD player last night and the remote had me screaming after 5 mins.
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My calculator, so cheap it hasn't bothered to show a brand name, has 23 buttons: ten numbers & decimal point; equals, plus, minus, times, divide; three memory buttons (save as positive number, save as negative, recall); square root; percentage; on & off. These suffice for calculating averages, net run-rate, Duckworth/Lewis etc. Don't think I ever use square root or percentage.
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I remember the days when a calculator was considered fancy if it had square root on it.
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In a stats heavy job, I use a big button desk calculator with a square root and one memory for quick calcs, and Excel for everything else... unless it involves geometry or algebra in which case I use a pen. I rather suspect the fancy calculators are one-up manship on behalf of children, parents, or both.
Watching that reality programme that takes 2005/6 GCSE students back to a 50s Grammar school environment, I was dismayed that none of the students knew how to do long division.
Do we all remember that Isaac Asimov story where everyone links into Multivac for arithmetic - and then someone rediscovers mathematics? ("No. Really. It comes up the same everytime you type it in.") And the use that was made of this new ability?
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And what was the short story where a space ship lost its navigation computer but the crew contained someone who had been taught to use an abacus by his granny?
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The problem is to teach kids to understand what division actually *is*. The test is whether you can change the words "share 18 sweets among 6 children" and see if they can still realise it's a division question.
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[Checks]
Yes - 'Into the Comet'. Amusing now for the assumption that a large spaceship would have only one computer!
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And yes, I do recall the Asimov story in question and the cost-saving initiative that this new skill was used for.... :)
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But then, my calculator of choice is my trusty old 'simple' casio sx570s, from a long line of similar functionality ones. Useful to me as it does Hex<-->dec and octal, and I know how to drive it. Well. Most of the keys/functions anyway...
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Mind you it's getting somewhat worn around the edges these days!
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(Then again, I'm sure it must be easier than floating-point division in fixed-precision binary...)
I remember, when I was dealing with school-level arithmetic, my father was continually trying to teach me how to use a slide-rule. His assertion that it was easy, and that all you needed was an approximate idea of the final result first, always threw me. Just like knowing how to spell a word, before looking up its spelling in a dictionary.