nSpired?

Jeffrey Cheng

A teacher walks over and scolds a student for playing Pokémon on his calculator instead of analyzing the data that the teacher just beamed to the class.  This may sound like a scene from the future, but the Texas Instruments’s latest creation, the nSpire, makes all of this possible.  And with the District’s switch from the TI-84 to the new calculator, this technological power is now available to the entire student body.

Many features on the calculator leave past models in the dust.  Senior Jack Wei likes the new version for many reasons. “I like the full-color screen, chargeable battery, faster graphing, easier calculations and new keyboard,” he said.

Teachers are just as enthusiastic about the new calculator.  Geometry and Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry (FST) teacher Chris Moody cited the document format that eases saving, organizing and sharing files, new variable naming system, and graph format.

Honors Algebra-Trig teacher Katelyn Long commented on the accompanying software.  “I love the computer software for teachers because it allows me to do class demos with a really big interactive calculator so everyone can see,” she said.

Other features include 3-D graphing, digital imaging, chemical notation, and data measurement tools.  Due to the capabilities of the TI-nSpire, math teachers have been quick to incorporate the mini-computer into class.

“In FST we used the nSpire extensively for analyzing data and creating lines of best fit. We have already done four excursions on the calculator to better understand functions,” Moody said.  “It helps share common data for problems and easily visualize relationships in geometry.  We use it as a tool for understanding functions and their properties, but not as a magic black box that generates the answers.”

Perhaps these features, while convenient, overstep the boundaries of what a calculator should be able to do.  Most of the features are appearance-based, which do not contribute towards the purpose of the calculator: to simplify calculations.  Although the computer software allows for an easier display, using the document camera on the older models would have essentially the same result.  The new features of the

But the calculator itself also has some major flaws.  Moody said that “the regression information has generic names rather than type of regression specific names, the touchpad is sometimes difficult to manipulate when you want a specific point, and that there is not a command to have the function bar on the graph all the time.”

Jack Wei also acknowledged major problems with the nSpire: “It is way harder to program on the nSpire,” Wei said. “It’s also harder to find equations, especially if you are used to the TI-84.  Overall, I still like the TI-84 more than the nSpire, because its functions are easier to use and follow, and the better programming function is used in class a lot.”

Calculators are simple tools for easing the brute computations of mathematicians, allowing them to focus on the conceptual and theoretical aspects of mathematics.  However, the trend of machines today is to add features that may be useful, but ultimately surpass or do not relate to the main purpose of the product (cough, cough, Apple).  The TI-nSpire is a flashy representation of this trend in the mathematical world.  Despite its amazing features, beautiful design, and possible applications in class, the nSpire offers little more in practicality than older, more traditional calculators.  The nSpire, for all its full-colored, 3-D, data-collecting might, is only an embellished, overpriced gadget to be outdone by the next eye-catching model.