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From: billw@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.CV.HP.COM (William C Wickes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: The use of calculators in teaching calculus
Message-ID: <25590086@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.CV.HP.COM>
Date: 13 Dec 90 00:52:16 GMT
References: <4608@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 22

There is a booming interest in the use of computers and calculators in
mathematics education, ranging from simple graphing calculators like
the TI-81 through PC based computer algebra systems.  This is clearly
the wave of the future (the wave of now, in many places); folks
who bemoan the loss of "important" skills like computing Taylor's polynomials
by hand are going to be left behind.  Does anybody remember how to
compute a square root by hand (does anybody care)?  Do I know what a
square root is?--you betcha.  But if I didn't, I would learn about it
a lot faster by graphing it on a calculator than by scrabbling around
counting off digits in pairs.

But I'm prejudiced, of course.  After all, I did leave university teaching
to come to HP and develop a calculator that was based on what I saw
when I was teaching.  So don't listen to me--get a copy of the
Proceedings of the 3rd Annual International Conference on Technology
in Collegiate Mathematics from the Ohio State U. Math Department.  Talk
to the folks at Clemson.  Ask the cadets at West Point who convinced
the math department to require Derive and the HP 28S for all cadets.  Find
out why the NCTM is recommending graphing calculators for all secondary
school students.

--Bill Wickes