Ti Calculator Question

[anitanium]

My high school had graphing calculators which they lended out. But anyways, using a graphing calculator with that kind of power for Gr.9 math is quite ridiculous. I'm entering 2nd year engineering, and I don't think I can even begin to maximize usage of a lot of the functions which are available.
Cheating is a great issue with programmable calculators. I have many friends who have done it religiously throughout grades 11/12. Sure teachers can 'check' for any stored data, but there are ways around it.

i.e. Store 200 games on your graphing calculator. Put your data into a file named Tetris or the likes. Also password locks and etc can be put on.

in BC, before provincial exams, all the teachers come around and physically wipe the TI's clean (they actually know how to erase all data) so there isn't any in the ram.

fortunately for me, i archived everything on my TI-83+ (SILVER EDITION!!!) and unarchived when the exam started.
w00t.

but that was a long time ago

i don't see the point in a grade 10 student requiring a graphing calculator.
pointless really...

[thestagnant]

That is ridiculous. Why don't they make students do the math instead of getting a calculator to do it for them? High school students should learn how to plot graphs themselves. I used a pretty basic calculator until a 4th year Robotics course in university, and even then it was only a TI-83.