My experience was that college calculus students using J in a computer lab had difficulty with
2*3+4 14 --their TI calculators gave the desired answer 10. I told them "always parenthesize multiplications, divisions, exponentiations, and f x", but they forgot. I supplied hidden definitions for fn, pi, sin, cos, etc. so that f =: '(2*y)+4' fn defined what is colloquially called the 2x+4 function. There I went beyond grade school, but the remark about TI calculators would apply to grade school. Children are taught PEMDAS for order of operations: Parentheses, Exponentiation, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction. I am aware Ken pointed out inadequacies of this rule. TI's Algebraic Logic System is complicated! On Monday, September 22, 2014, Brian Schott <[email protected]> wrote: > I suspect I have told this tale before, but JHS has renewed my enthusiasm > for the results. > > Back in the '80s I was teaching in a brand new computerized classroom > where each student had a computer and the instructor had both the computer > and a large display screen. The computers were all linked to a school wide > wired network and was administered by the IT department. One of the people > in the IT department wrote a special program for me that enabled my > students to anonymously type one-line messages on their own computer and > the results were displayed on the instructor's computer and on the > classroom's large screen. > > I would ask questions and the students could type their answers with > confidence that others would not know their identity.Their answers were > like today's text messages and did not have any calculation involved. From > the front of the classroom I was able to comment on answers and help > students who were having trouble very effectively, I think. > > Wouldn't JHS in a modern classroom enable a similar situation if each > student brings his or her own tablet? And the messages could be typed in J > phrases (even without a graphics result from the likes of plot and viewmat) > or in NB.'ed text. > > Does anyone have experience with this? > > > --- > (B=) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
