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Comment by qz2 | Hacker News Reader

I think your position is unrealistic for an education setting. You’re proposing working computers and smartphones for every desk and student.

Computers and apps are not standardised at all. Disparity between them and compatibility issues are a massive contention when you have lots of people to educate. Not only that, even today here in the UK, not every student has a smartphone or a home computer so you’re instantly discriminating against them. The answer? Grab a standard calculator out of a box that everyone else has and loan it to them.

All students need a calculator for other subjects as well. In science, technology and geography they use them too.

And you can’t realistically control the configuration of a computer or smartphone in an exam.

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My professor at the University used to let me use an HP Prime emulator on my laptop for tests, and to some of my peers, they would be allowed to use HP Prime emulators on their phones, it's really difficult to cheat on the kinds of tests where you need these calculators, you can't simply copy your classmate's answer and be done with it, you need procedure to back that up.

And it was $15 the emulator app by hp was worth vs $150 for the actual calculator, and I would never use that calculator again in my life, since in real life no one is limiting my access to my computer, which does everything the HP Prime does and more. I thank my professor for that opportunity

Theoretically, you can resell the calculator, but not the app.

I'd figure that by adding the value I'd get by selling it still wouldn't be as cheap as buying the app

Every kid at my children's school have a Chromebook. The exact same model. Calculators are really relics of a bygone era and it is time education realizes there is greater value in embracing better tech than trying to stop a bogeyman.

And chrome books barely cost more than these stupid calculators!

> Every kid at my children's school have a Chromebook.

That's Great. What about every kid in Detroit, Flint, or Chicago?

Solutions need to make sure we don't widen the digital divide.

Chicago is a case study for Chromebooks (literally, on Google's marketing site for Chromebooks). They supply them to students.

Detroit just got a donation of 51,000 chromebooks for students who's families could not afford them.

Flint, Mi issued iPads and Chromebooks to students in August.

Requiring a $120 calculator seems to be more of a digital divide issue than a $200 computer that can be used for every class.

Tons of schools are going to chrome books. In fact digital books are distributed this way and cheaper than physical books.

While students may need a calculator, I don't think they need a graphing calculator. It seems a silly expense when they already have a smartphone. At high school in the UK in 1990s we were expected to buy our own calculators. Only primary school had boxes of (non-scientific) calculators.

I bought a graphing calculator for A-level maths, but only needed the graphing functionality a handful of times. At university graphing calculators were banned in exams. Only the basic scientific FX-82 was allowed (which cost about £15 IIRC.)

>And you can’t realistically control the configuration of a computer or smartphone in an exam.

And why should you? This isn't the 1860s when exams were being invented. We shouldn't try and copy the conditions that were accidental at the time for all eternity. If someone can cram their phone with a program that answers their exams for them they should be commended for good preparation and we should find another way of measuring peoples knowledge.

You are saying that there exists a segment of the college student population that will spend 100$ on a scientific calculator but does not own a smartphone?

Yes. Plenty. Also not many people pay $100. There’s a thriving second hand market for much less.

When the TI83 was the calculator I’d actually buy 100 or so for low price at start of summer (large surplus), spend two weeks clean and refurb and then sell them again for 3x the amount at the end (high demand)

In the UK, Poundland sells a scientific calculator for £1 ($1.30). It does not have advanced functionality (like graphing, programming, automatic factoring by surds and irrationals like pi, etc.) that higher-end models do, but it should be enough for most contexts.

Maybe not college, but definitely high school.

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