Contact: Melissa Reifert
July 20, 2007

MECC Professor One of First Trained to Use Texas Instruments’ New “Nspire” Calculator

Sylvia Brown recently returned from a trip where she learned information that just a short time ago was kept top-secret by Texas Instruments (TI). The company, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, provides DSP and analog technologies to customers. It is also a major player in the education technology business as evidenced by the TI-83 and TI-84 graphing calculators that the company produces. The latest calculator developed by Texas Instruments is the TI-Nspire, coming to industrial product dealers this fall.

Brown, a mathematics professor at Mountain Empire Community College, does not have to wait until the fall to get her hands on the Nspire. She already owns one, and has been trained by Texas Instruments to use it and teach others how to use it. Approximately, 300 people applied to receive the training for the new Nspire. Brown was one of the 125 individuals chosen to travel to Dallas, and learn about the calculator’s innovative features for five days at Texas Instruments’ education facilities.

Brown’s group of 26 trainees consisted of various educators in the area of mathematics including kindergarten through 12th grade lead teachers, independent consultants, math technology staff development specialists, department coordinators, and math coaches. Brown just happened to be the only professor from a community college and the only educator representing the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“There are more interactive features with the TI-Nspire calculator,” says Brown. “There is a grab and move function. For instance, you can grab a graph and change its shape. When you change the graph’s shape, the new equation shows up on the screen with the graph. When you enter a new equation, you don’t have to keep going back to the graph screen as you did with previous calculators.”

According to Brown, the Nspire will enable students to see and understand better the impact of changes, especially in subjects such as geometry. “With certain concepts, students are going to be able to visualize better, and catch on quicker. They can actually see in real time how the area of a square or rectangle changes as the length or width changes.”

She says that the new calculator is set up like a computer desktop, and gives students the ability to save their work as a document. Teachers can then link from calculator to calculator to receive the work, or obtain software for their own computers on which they can download work from the students’ calculators for grading later.

“The Nspire has an interchangeable faceplate that teachers can use until they are trained,” she says.

Dr. Kurt Harper, Texas Instruments’ local educational technology consultant, will attend a one-hour presentation given by Brown about the Nspire on Thursday, August 30 at 4 p.m. on the MECC campus. The new calculators will be on hand for attendees to use and practice activities.

“A special invitation for this training session is extended to pre-service teachers,” states Brown. “We need more math and science teachers, and the TI-Nspire might just encourage more teachers to go into those areas.”

In addition, Brown has already contacted Dickenson, Scott, and Wise County Schools and Kingsport City Schools to conduct training sessions. Exact dates for this training will be determined soon with these individual school systems. Texas Instruments has agreed to donate 30 Nspires and a viewscreen, a $4500 retail price, to MECC if she trains 200 teachers to use the calculator by the end of February.

All sessions, including the presentation on August 30, are open to middle school, high school, college, and university math and science teachers and administrators. For more information on setting up a training session for your school system or to sign up for the August 30 session, contact Brown at sbrown@me.vccs.edu. To learn more about the TI-Nspire, visit the website at www.ti-nspire.com.

Sylvia Brown, a Mathematics Professor at Mountain Empire Community College, displays the differences between a TI-83 calculator and the new TI-Nspire calculator, coming to industrial product dealers this fall. Brown was one of 125 math educators chosen to travel to Texas Instruments’ headquarters in Dallas, and receive training to use the Nspire.

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