TI-Nspire Day 1

I am currently attending a summer workshop about the TI-Nspire CX CAS and its supporting teacher/student software. It's very exciting, let me tell you that! I am learning about the CAS system and basically how it can tackle various problems with greater formatting and understanding. Less ambiguity on a calculator is better in my opinion. We learned a lot, and I can see where it will come in handy this fall in Calculus II and my other math courses. I also got a classroom poster for the Nspire and a large binder with how-tos and student activities. Today was learning how to use the handheld and demoing the navigator (which makes the nspire definitely worth it), tomorrow will be learning the software and creating our own documents.

I met a lot of teachers from various areas in Texas, I am working in a group with an algebra/geometry teacher and a physics/chemistry teacher (just what will help me best!). I feel very edtech savvy with my smartphone and picking up the handheld device quickly. One of the things the presenter brought up during an activity that he said the nspire does that math teachers do not like is how it distributes over an equation, e.g.:

Instead of applying the operation to both sides of the equation, it simply puts the equation in parentheses and writes the operation once. Now, in all honesty this is the way that I do math by hand because I understand what's going on and it definitely saves me time, but it may be hard for students to understand what exactly is going on here. This is where algebra tiles or the algebra balance will come in to play in order to show that the operation must be applied to both sides (which is what the parentheses imply) in order to remain equal.

After the workshop let out for the day I drove around downtown Houston for a little bit. I want to see if there are any tours going on so I can make the most out of this trip. More on the workshop later!