Week 3

This week, our group really cracked down and completed our first module, aptly titled Module 1. I will say that we started pretty late in the week. Early on this week, with my busy class schedule and other outside commitments, I was unable to work much on the Nspire itself. It wasn't until Thursday night that I actually resumed my exploration of the Nspire. I completed several introductory activities in the Nspire, found my fellow group members, which we would later use as part of our Module 1.

After a long group meeting on Saturday, I again went home and began playing with the Nspire. I started with some basic calculator stuff, finding simple sums, products, and trigonometric values. I then began to explore some of the cooler stuff about the calculator. I find it fascinating that the Nspire can actually test the validity of statements. For example, you can define a variable "a" as a certain value, say a=30. Then you can test a certain statement, such as (a-7)=(7-a), which of course is not true except in one case, where a is 7. But since a was defined as 30, the calculator will tell you that this statement is false. It's really cool that you can test certain conditions and statements with the calculator instead of proving them yourself (although in a classroom setting, you would want to explore why a statement is true or false and provide some justification).

I also continued to work on my two activities for my part of Module 1. I completed an introductory page and located a student and a teacher worksheet for my activities. The first activity is Expression Builder, which allows students to physically build expressions with a digital equivalent of algebra tiles. You just click and drag these "blocks" over into the area where it tells you to build your expression, and it changes the expression for you. You can control what each variable equals. It allows students to see a visual example of expressions. The second activity expands on the expressions activity; this activity is called the Algebraic Number Line. Essentially, you have an expression and you control what numerical value your variable has, which allows students to develop patterns and relationships between the expression and the resulting value as the variable changes. These activities are both pre-programmed into the Nspire. Originally, both of these activities were only on Dr. Shafer's calculator (the one I am using). However, we used Chris' technology to put these activities on the other calculators in our group. This wasn't as huge of a problem as we originally thought.

In response to our prompt this week, I would like to say that I am not as proficient yet with the Nspire as I would like to be. I feel like I know how to do basic things, like open up the basic calculator tab to complete simple arithmetic problems. As I mentioned earlier, I can also test a statement for validity, and I can set a variable. Despite this, I'm still learning how to graph with the calculator and am still exploring a lot with it. I am enjoying the Nspire however. Every time I play with it, I feel like I'm learning something new and cool about it. It's also really cool to learn things from my group members about the Nspire that they also seem equally excited about. But as I said, at this stage, I can do several things on the Nspire, but I am not as proficient with it as I would like to be. This is changing rapidly though, as I have more time to play with the Nspire.

TI-NSpire Week 2

This week, I finally borrowed the TI-Nspire from Dr. Shafer. I also borrowed a connection cord to connect the NSpire to a computer via a USB connection, and a CD that has some things about the NSpire on it. I continued to research various articles on the Nspire and its technology, while continuing to read the guidebook and completing some basic tutorials. I also received some articles and other material from fellow group members (I posted most of what I received onto my BSU_Shared iLocker account). We will be researching these and deciding more on what we're going to do for our first "lesson module" as a group in the next couple of days. All in all, this week was more experimenting with the TI-Nspire. I felt it was necessary for our group to work individually initially and then now we are ready to come together to discuss what we've found, what we like, and so forth. I can't wait to finally get started on our first lesson with the NSpire.

I would like to note that it seems difficult at this stage to progress on the NSpire as a group as well as completing the other tasks that we must do for our class. I can't help but feel that attention is being diverted from our work on the NSpire to complete other activities just so we can "get our grade." Hopefully this mentality or the course load will change as we progress further into the semester and we actually begin rigorous work on the NSpire.

First Blog Entry

This is my first blog entry using my new Blogger account. I will be adding to this later with my updated journal entry for Week 2 in our MATHS 331 course at Ball State University.