The Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators have had a tremendous impact on secondary mathematics education. Not only do they realize the power of visualization, but they change the content of mathematics curriculum and allow for real reform to take place. The calculators are affordable, portable, and powerful. And their programmability makes them as versatile as a computer. Here's some stuff for you to ponder.

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programs.zip contains programs.83g, programs.8xg, and programs.txt. You can ungroup them in Graph-Link (Tools/Ungroup) or send the entire group file to a calculator without ungrouping. The 'g' files are 'Group' files and can be downloaded directly from your computer to the calculator using the Graph-Link software and cable. You can also 'ungroup' the file to separate the programs in order to edit them or send them individually to the calculator. See your Graph-Link program for more information or read the "Graph-Link: The Brief Course" PDF document below.

To 'correct' a TI-82 program to work on an TI-83, you must fix the (parentheses) problem: On the TI-82, functions and some commands had no left parentheses (like "Sin"). But, on the TI-83, the functions all have a left parentheses appended: it is now "Sin(". Send the TI-82 program to a TI-83, then scour the program and look for these functions and either: remove the 'extra' left parenthesis if the program already had one, or add a right parenthesis if there were no parentheses in the original program. The trick lies in knowing where to place the right parenthesis! This is an excellent mathematical activity!!!

What's 'APPening on the TI-83Plus? (posted 4/13/2002)- handout for NCTM Las Vegas. 

  Memory Management on the TI-83 Plus (new 01/03/02) is a 5-page document describing the memory configuration (RAM and ARCHIVE) of the TI-83 Plus and how to ARCHIVE and GROUP your stuff in the calculator.

 TI83Symbols.zip (10/14/01- contains TI83Symbols.dot) The "TI-83 Symbols Template" for Word 2000, including a custom toolbar for the TI-83 keyfont symbols and a button linking to Grab83. Clicking the 'Grab83' button will paste a screenshot into the document using "Grab83". Put this file in your Templates folder. In Word, check Tools/Options and look at the File Locations tab to see where your template files are located. Mine are in c:\windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. If your computer has User Profiles enabled, then your Templates are in c:\windows\profiles\<username>\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. Naturally, you need to have the TI-83 keyfont installed in order for these buttons to do their job! If you don't like the picture of the TI-83 in the left margin (it's really in the header!) , just double-click it and press the 'delete' key.

Make your own toolbar   (new 03/04/01): a one-page explanation of creating Word2000 macros and a custom toolbar to make 'buttons ' representing the TI calculator keyfont symbols. Makes short work of putting the calculator key symbols into your handouts. It's how my symbols templates got made.

TI89Symbols.zip (new 03/04/01) is ZIPfile containing a Word2000 document template (TI89Symbols.dot) that contains a custom toolbar with some of the TI-89 keyfont characters as buttons. To use the .dot file, copy it to your c:\windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder. Then, either click your START button and choose "New Office Document", or, in Word, choose File/New... and you'll find TI89Symbols.dot as one of the 'General' document choices. Double-click it and you should get a new document with a TI-89 Symbols toolbar. To use the toolbar, just click one of the buttons and that symbol from the TI-89 Symbols font should appear at the current cursor position in the current font size. Cool. Check back regularly for updates to this file or add your own toolbar buttons using the 'Make Your Own Toolbar' instructions above.

The TI-89, CBL2, Motion, and DataMate() (4 pages) contains step-by-step instructions for collecting 'bouncing ball' data using the CBL2's built-in DataMate software. Written 03/01.

The TI-89, CBL2, Microphone, and physics() (4 pages) contains step-by-step instructions for collecting 'sound' data using the CBL2 and Vernier's physics() program. Written 03/01.
 

Sierpinski x 3 , a 2 page document describing three different ways of generating the Sierpinski Gasket on the TI-82/3, including programs, explanations, and pictures.

Julia and the TI-92 , a 1 page document about programming the 'chaos game' (with complex numbers) for the Julia Set.

Feigenbaum and TI , a 1 page document containing the Feigenbaum diagram (a 'bifurcation' fractal consisting of parabolas) from the TI-92 and the short TI-92 program that constructs this amazing fractal.

Chaos: the rest of the story , a 2 page document (published in the Sept 2001 Mathematics Teacher "Technology Tips" section) that adds two items to the good article by Robert Iovinelli in the February 2000 issue of the Mathematics Teacher magazine published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics . The 'big idea' is the Feigenbaum fractal described above, but the article didn't mention the fractal.

The Internet and Your Calculator , the conference handout for the 1999 T³ International Conference, is available here as a Web page also. This is pretty old stuff.

Graph-Link: The Brief Course , a 3 page handout describing the use of Graph-Link for the TI-83 for T³ Instructors and 1999 Summer Institute participants. Get TI Connect instead!

Grab It Quick! , - under revision... coming soon! This handout will describe using my Grab* programs rather than Graph-Link or TI Connect software to get calculator screenshots into your computer application. It also describes creating and using Word macros, and other useful graphics tricks to transfer images between your calculator and your computer. See my IVIEW page or Talk TI Software page for downloading the Grab programs and IVIEW programs.