1 Mar
2013
1 Mar
'13
12:17 p.m.
[snip]
Message: 18
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:05:30 -0800 (PST)
From: Chris Tofu <rampaginggreenhulk at yahoo.com>
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Raspberry Pi
Message-ID:
<1362089130.27488.BPMail_high_carrier at web141105.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 11:38 AM PST Tony Duell wrote:
Just last year, I had to show a young Engineer in my office how to use
my 1983-vintage Radio Shack scientific calculator! :P
He's young enough to either have mostly used smart phone apps for such
things rather than *real* calculators, or he'd forgotten how to use a
scientific calculator because of his app use/dependence.
Of course, another Engineer in my office discovered the hard way that
his calculator app was faulty when calculating a trig function (Sine,
I think) for a problem. Fortunately, a real calculator convinced him
that his app had a bug (a RAD to DEG conversion programming error) --
he immediately found a better calculator app.
Bob
It has been said that now that calcualtors are
everywhere, kids do not
need to leanr how to do long multiplication and division. I am nto sure I
accept that (given that long multiplciaton and division have applciations
in manipulating agebraic expresions too). But I am convinced that if you
are goign to assume that clacualtors are everywhere you should teach kids
why said calculators do not always give the right answers and how to
avoid such problems.
-tony
When I was in hs, calculators weren't seen until or 12th grade. When it was
impractical and too time consuming to work out every log, trig function, or
laborious arithmetic operation. Kids have been bringing calculators to
school for 2 decades probably, and I for one see that as a travesty.