The TI-Nspire CX is an amazing but still underused tool for math educators.

If you didn’t realize it, this past Saturday marked the one year anniversary of the public announcement of the TI-Nspire CX, Texas Instruments’ full color graphing calculator. For those of you just learning about it, you might enjoy reading my TI-Nspire CX review, or even the story where I broke the announcement of the TI-Nspire CX right here on Tech Powered Math.

One year later, I’ve been thinking about where things stand with the TI-Nspire CX, and the TI-Nspire line in general, and I find that I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love where Texas Instruments is going with the Nspire line. Since OS 3.0, the Nspire is a fully mature platform. Any complaints I still have about the operating system are minor. All of the best features of other Texas Instruments calculators have been incorporated into the Nspire by now, and it has many capabilities that they will never have.

The majority of the students at my school are on Nspires because we have pushed them to stay current on the technology, and I see what a huge advantage it is. Our students are really able to use their calculators to understand math and solve problems, and they spend very little time trying to figure out how to make the calculator do what they want it do do. Their TI-84 classmates do well too, but I can see frustration when they discover something that can be done quickly on the Nspire but requires more button presses or can’t be done at all on the TI-84. I applaud TI for continuing to stretch the Nspire platform, and I’m excited to see how it will continue to evolve.

On the other hand, I also attended a math competition on Saturday with the math team I coach. We had a great time defending our regional title, our fifth in a row. Still, as I looked around the competition, I saw the same thing I usually see at math competitions: student after student from other schools using TI-84′s at best and four function calculators at worst, and even some students without a calculator.

Whenever I see that, there is a small part of me that looks at and realizes what a huge competitive advantage it gives my team to be trained on TI-Nspire CAS’s when they are up against kids who got the $.99 calculator at the Walmart checkout because, hey, I like to win as much as the next guy. But a much bigger part of me gets a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that that those kids are being cheated out of a very valuable learning opportunity, and I don’t understand why.

Sometimes at these things, I’ll even hear a kid bragging to their friends that a calculator wouldn’t even help them because “I do math without a calculator.” I have to hold my tongue because I know it’s not true, in large part because their scores bear it out. But here’s the part that nobody talks about: I’m actually quite confident that my students learn so much from the work they do on their calculators that if I took them away from them for the competition, they’d still do better that if they had trained exclusively without the calculators. We do just as well in the events that don’t allow calculators, if not a little better.

Obviously, there is plenty of math to be taught and learned that doesn’t involve a graphing calculator at all. However, the students at a math team competition are supposed to be the best and brightest students. They are supposed to be coached by top teachers, the kind of teachers who understand the power of technology in a math context and how it can be used to understand and solve problems.

The fact of that matter is that they probably are the best, which is why it is disappointing to me that I don’t see enough people–students or teachers–pushing the math technology envelope. If we won’t even do it for our best students, there’s certainly no reason to think we’ll do it for the underachieving students who need it even more. At a minimum, the brightest kids will eat up the kinds of problem solving experiences they can have with the TI-Nspire platform (I know because my students do), but there need to be more teachers, administrators, and parents pushing them. It certainly doesn’t have to be the TI-Nspire. The Casio Prizm, Wolfram Alpha, Desmos, and too many great technologies to name are out there, but even in today’s technology age they are underused, not by every school, but by many schools. Unfortunately, they are often underused in the schools and with the students that would most benefit from them.

So Happy Birthday, TI-Nspire CX! Your first year was a great one for my students, and I know by many students across the country. I just hope as a one-year-old you have a growth spurt that finds you into the hands of students that need you the most. As you continue to grow and mature, you have the potential to help a lot of kids that could really use it.

I do feel as though I can speak from a position of some authority on this subject. I have coached the math team at my school for 8 years now, this being my sixth as the head coach. When I took over the head coaching role of the team in 2007, we had not won a regional in 15 years and never brought home a trophy from the Illinois state championships. This coming weekend, we are hoping to win a 5th straight regional title and we are in search of our 4th consecutive top 3 state finish, last year having narrowly missed winning it all at state and finishing second.

While there are many factors that have led to this massive change of fortune, graphing calculator use and training has been a major component.  When I took over the team, I found a closet full of TI-92′s collecting dust in a cabinet. Immediately, I started handing them out to the kids and training them on them. Five years later, we have re-retired the TI-92′s and compete with TI-Nspire CAS’s. The kids are extremely proficient with them, and it is a significant advantage over schools that send their students into the competitions either without graphing calculators or completely untrained on how to use them (and I would say the majority of teams fall into one of these two categories).

In addition to the state math team competition series, I have also coached students in other mathematics competitions such as AMC, Purple Comet, and WYSE (Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering), so I’m familiar with a variety of competitions. Let me give a few pieces of advice about graphing calculator use in mathematics competitions.

Know the Rules

Before you jump into the competitions, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the rules of the game. Everything else in your graphing calculator strategy will be dictated by the competition’s rules. You can often find them on the sponsoring body’s website, and if not, a competition director will surely be happy to answer your questions.

Most competitions will fall into one of three categories:

1. No calculators of any type allowed–time to move from this article if that’s the case.
2. No CAS calculators allowed–probably ACT legal calculators.
3. CAS calculators allowed–probably SAT legal calculators, although some competitions such as ours in Illinois are fine with the TI-92/TI-Voyage.

Make a Wise Decision on a Team Calculator

If feasible, I think it is wise to get as many of the students working on the same calculator. If you have a little bit of team cohesiveness, they’ll probably be discussing problems from time to time. Our kids are constantly sharing tricks they’ve learned on the calculator with each other, something that’s made easier by the fact that they are all working on the same device.

Your main decision has to be whether you are going to use a CAS calculator or not, something that the exam rules may dictate for you. If you have the freedom to use a CAS calculator, take a look at past competition exams. In most cases, it’ll probably be to your advantage to have a CAS, but clever test writers can negate that advantage. If there were no budget constraints, my choices for a competition calculator would boil down to two: the Casio Prizm as a non-CAS, and the TI-Nspire CAS for a CAS calculator. Both are very easy to use and very powerful. I’d choose the Prizm over the TI-84 because of greater power in certain graph features, with conic sections, and it’s ability to simplify radicals and do exact trig values, features that are handy under the time constraints of a competition.

Know Your Calculator’s Capabilities

Despite my top choices for a competition calculator, there are many other choices out there that would make good competition calculators: the TI-84, TI-89 Titanium, TI-Voyage 200, TI-Nspire, and Casio 9860 GII would all be among them. The key thing is that you have to know your calculator’s capabilities inside and out. In math competitions, speed is critical. I wouldn’t waste time on solving a system of linear equations with a matrix and the Gauss Jordan method on a TI-Nspire because it’s got a linear solver that’s faster and would make sense even to a freshman. Do you understand how to find the determinant of a matrix with a variable in it on a TI-89? If not, neither will your students. Every nuance you pick up is something you’ll have the chance to pass along to your students, and trust me, the kind of student that competes on a math team is a sponge for those kinds of calculator tricks.

Train Your Students

I can’t understate this one enough. The kids won’t know how to take advantage of the calculators if you don’t do some coaching. When I first got started, we did an hour long training session for all the kids on how to use the calculators. Nowadays, the returning players bring so much knowledge to the team already that we only give intensive training to new players, mainly freshmen. Everything else is done in one on one sessions as calculator appropriate problems crop up via practice exams.

You don’t have to show them everything in their first year. We make sure all new players know how to use the algebra features of the TI-Nspire CAS, including solve, factor, expand, etc. As they get older, we add in features like matrix operations, combinatorics, calculus features, etc. Once they are trained, it’ll save you a ton of time on working through solutions with them. For example, my kids know that if I’m working through a solution with them, if we can get to the point where we’ve got the same number of equations and unknowns, the explanation is over. No matter how difficult the equations would normally be to solve by hand, they are comfortable with my expectation that they need to know how to solve those equations with their CAS.

Have Fun

I know some people buy into the notion that math team kids already work hard, so being a part of the team should just be silly time. I believe kids love being a part of something excellent, so we train hard, and they do love it. My coaching staff and the kids believe in having plenty of time for laughing and joking, but we also believe in doing math team to succeed, much the same as we would for an athletic team. Trust me, there is absolutely room for both. Your students will thank you for making the effort to both have fun and challenge them mathematically.

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Because nothing says “I Love You” like a graph, the guys over at A Better Calculator (Desmos) have developed a way for you to send a Valentine to your loved one via their online graphing calculator. I’ve already sent one off to my wife, who will no doubt laugh at what a dork I am (while probably melting just a little inside as well). It’s only here for a short time, so check it out here. You can choose from several predesigned Valentine’s, include a message, and then email or tweet it out.

First, there are so many resources out there that I haven’t come close to seeing them all. Second, I tried not to be too repetitive with genres. For example, there are a number of cool graph/chart makers online, but I tried to stick to a single resource of each type as much as possible. Third, and most importantly, I was very biased in the process of making this list. I went with my favorites. So if you disagree with my rankings, or if you have suggestions of your own that I omitted, please add them in the comments below this post.

1. Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram’s computational knowledge can’t be beat as a resource for students and teachers. It’s my top choice for the best free resource available on the web. The Pro version was just announced earlier this week.

2. Khan Academy

Video lessons on any and every mathematical topic. Khan’s videos aren’t always the most polished, but the vast array of topics and thorough explanations make up for it.

3. Desmos

The best free online graphing calculator I’ve ever seen, now available in an iPad optimized format.

4. NLVM

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives created by Utah State has a wealth of interactive activities for K-12.

5. Wikipedia

I’m sure I’ll catch some heat for this one, especially so high, and I feel like I have to  offer an explanation. For all that’s wrong with Wikipedia from an educational standpoint, there’s a heck of a lot more that’s right. For example, check out the entry on the Pythagorean theorem. The theorem is explained in far more detail and using far more approaches than any textbook I’ve come across. Additionally, the article itself only scratches the surface. The citations section at the bottom of Wikipedia articles is often a gold mine. The Pythogrean Theorem the article currently has 75 references, many of them to books and research publications, each of which would be a great place to go for a student doing a research paper. Rather than banning students from Wikipedia, I’d encourage them to learn to read it with careful scrutiny. After all, students need to develop a skeptical eye is for consuming information in the 21st century.

6. Geogebra

Free piece of dynamic geometry and algebra software that will remind you of Geometer’s Sketchpad (with a little something extra, like algebra and statistics).

7. Itunes

Apple’s software gives quick access to a wealth of free video lessons such as MIT Open Courseware.

8. Google Sketchup

Google’s 3D drawing software.

9. Illuminations

Activities from the National Council of Teacher’s of Mathematics

10. MIT’s Open Courseware

Free access to videos, lecture notes, assignments and solutions in over 2 dozen different classes at one of the most prestigious universities in the world? I think it qualifies for this list.

11. Google Books

Google’s online library of books. Just search “math” and you’ll be hitting the “books” before you know it.

12. Education.TI.com

Activities, apps and upgrades for Texas Instruments graphing calculators.

13. CasioEducation.com

Activities, tutorials, and upgrades for Casio graphing calculators.

14. Brightstorm

Well mapped out video help designed specifically for math, science, and test prep. Premium features cost, but the basics are free.

15. HippoCampus

Easy access for to the National Repository of Online Courses for students and teachers.

16. Kaplan’s Quizbank

From the leader in test prep, a free tool to improve your ACT or SAT score.

17. Microsoft Mathematics

Microsoft’s free math software offers a wealth of functionality.

18. Cool Math

Games, games, and more math games.

19. E-Learning for Kids

Very nice animated lessons for students.

20. Gooru

Over 2600 personalized and standards aligned study guides from which to choose.

21. PatrickJMT

Just Math Tutorials, by Patrick.

22. OnlineChartTool

Attractive chart and graph maker.

23. Archimy

3D grapher that you can interact with right in your browser.

24. PhET Simulations

Virtual simulations of phenomenon like projectile motion.

25. Worksheetworks.com

Quick and easy way to make worksheets.

UPDATE: The contest has ended. The random.org random number generator selected Marianna Ballard as the winner. Congratulations, Marianna! Thanks to everyone who entered. I am planning to make contests a more regular part of Tech Powered Math, so be sure to follow on Facebook or Twitter to stay up to date on my giveaways.

I recently reviewed MathBlaster.com and was incredibly impressed by the scope and variety of the games as well as the professional polish and fun factor.  Now, you can win a free 3-month membership for MathBlaster.com, which is sponsoring this contest. It’s easy to enter–all you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Here are the ways you can enter:

1. Leave a comment at the bottom of this page. Your comment can be as simple as “Enter me in the contest!”
2. To get an additional entry, like the Tech Powered Math Facebook Page. You can “Like” Tech Powered Math via the Facebook box on the upper. Then leave a second comment below, letting me know that you Liked Us.
3. To get even more entries, share this page on with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or even by linking to it from your own blog. There are share buttons on this post to make that easier. Then leave another comment on this page (or comments) for each of those actions you took, explaining where you shared this post.
4. You must leave a comment on this page for each entry you qualify for. Facebook doesn’t allow contest entries via their site, so it has to be done here.
   
5. Contest ends at noon on Sunday, Feb 5. The winner will be selected randomly and I will announce the winner here at Tech Powered Math. IMPORTANT: You’ll need to accept my Facebook friend request in order to collect your prize because I need your email address to send you your prize. Once you have the prize, I will in no way be offended if you defriend me.

You must be 18 to win, and you can only enter the contest if you are legally allowed to accept the prize under the laws of your state/country. Good luck!!!

First Impressions

I was impressed by Math Blaster from the minute I logged on. The graphics were cool, the music felt like something out of The Matrix, and everything just felt very polished. One of the first surprises I had was that there were students avatars all around me. In playing in Math Blaster’s online environment, kids can interact with kids who are also playing the game. You can add friends and some of the games allow for competition between students. Like many other popular kids games, there are a lot of ways to update your avatar when you “level up,” unlock levels of the game, and even have a pet to care for. All of these features add to the engagement factor designed to bring kids back to the game again and again.

Incidentally, parents have a lot of control with how their child’s online interactions occur. When logged into your parent account, you have the ability to disable interactions with other players or control how much interaction does occur. Math Blaster also has a blog targeted to parents to let them know about new game features and math skills being incorporated.

I really enjoyed the variety of activities available in Math Blaster. You enter games by moving your avatar from the deck of the space station you are in to different game rooms. Some games are racing, others are platform based (like Mario), some are even quest based. At one point the station even came under attack and all of us were ordered to rush to our battle stations in order to defend the station against attack.

Math Content

Math Blaster has math content designed primarily for elementary through middle school. The concepts I found emphasized in the games included addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but also decimals, place value, money, angle types, and multiples of numbers. I could tell from reading the old blog posts that new skills are being added over time. I like the fact that kids can make a lot of customizations to the problems they are solving. In addition to the type of operations performed, they can often choose a limit on how large the numbers are that they’ll be working with and a difficulty level for the game as well.

Some of the games have more math content than others. I found that I could be successful in some almost without doing much math while others required a lot of correct answers in order advance even a single round. In the long run, there’s no way to continue to advance your avatar and unlock new levels in the game without solving a lot of math problems.

Bottom Line MathBlaster.com Review

MathBlaster.com is a huge world. I spent several hours exploring it and feel like I just scratched the surface. I wouldn’t call it a pure math game, more like an adventure game with significant math content. You need both gaming skills and math skills in order to continue advancing your character. There’s plenty of each to keep kids coming back for more.

The cost of a MathBlaster.com membership is very affordable, $8.99 per month at the time I posted this review (with better per month prices if you subscribe annually). At that price, it’s easy enough to buy a one month membership just to try it out. Incidentally, there are a lot of resources on MathBlaster.com in addition to the games, including lesson plans and worksheets. It’s definitely worth checking out whether you plan to purchase a membership or not.

Incidentally, MathBlaster.com is sponsoring a contest on Tech Powered Math next week. The winner will get a 3-month membership, so be sure to check back for more information on Monday.

Disclosure: I was provided with a membership good for Math Blaster and Knowledge Adventure at no cost by Knowledge Adventure in order to test the products’ abilities and give my own personal opinions on it. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the free product provided

I recently reviewed AbleMath, a new graphing calculator for the iPhone/iPod touch. The creators of AbleMath have generously offered 10 copies of AbleMath for me to give away here at Tech Powered Math, which I am doing in this contest. It is extremely easy to enter. This is only a 24 hour contest, so please enter right now so you don’t miss out.

There are 2 ways to enter the drawing.

1. Like/Share this post on Facebook. Then leave a comment below telling me that you did so (I won’t know you liked it otherwise).

2. Tweet this post on Twitter. It’s as easy as tweeting:

RT this post to win the AbleMath calculator iPhone app from @techpoweredmath #giveaway

You’ve got to include @techpoweredmath in your Tweet so I can find that you did so.

Contest ends at 9 p.m. Central time on January 24, 2012. I will contact the winners by direct message on Twitter or friending them on Facebook. Good luck!