I'm surprised to see "Approved for Exams" featured so prominently, as handheld calculators for lots of standardized exams are being phased out.

All of the exams listed are either already offered in a computerized format or in a transition phase, with the PSAT, SAT, APs, and ACT all already offering Desmos in their testing apps.

I love handheld calculators, but, especially in a time-sensitive environment, it's hard to beat a large screen and full keyboard.

"Approved for Exams" make more sense when you take into account the history of the Ti family of calculators.

Why are they still able to sell what is effectively a 30 year old computer for as much or more today than when it came out? Because they managed to get the family informally standardized as "The calculator every teacher in America understands well enough to manage students who use it. Therefore pretty much everything else that could be as or more advanced is effect banned."

It was an amazing piece of kit when it first came out. No doubt you could make something 100x better and 10x cheaper today if someone really tried. But, they would fail commercially because you can't design-in 30 years of legacy in the US school system.

for context

tests like SAT, ACT, and some AP exams are using Desmos, yes

however:

- this means you have to fiddle with a popover window and can't always see the full problem (especially when the reference sheet is also online)

- you have less muscle memory and often take longer

- harder to multitask (you use paper anyways, and the paper to calculator friction is lower than the paper to trackpad friction

- trackpads on school computers are usually worse, which compounds the problem

- some specific functions just don't exist

essentially using Desmos is like using a physical mouse/trackpad, while using your calculator is like using VIM motions and keyboard shortcuts with a concave split keyboard. it's technically more intuitive and can help in certain scenarios, but it's useful to have both.

this sounds trivial, but it's not, especially on tests where you have about or less than a minute per question

ideally you have both a handheld calculator and Desmos though

Ideally the tests would not require external tools at all. There's nothing that needs to be tested in the context of a high school course that can't done with pencil and paper.

There are a lot of interesting problems that can be done with a calculator, though

The calculus courses I took in high school disagree

I am from an xUSSR country. And started school shortly after the dissolution. Not only calculators were forbidden in exams, they were forbidden in classes. So calculators in school seems so strange to me.

TIL Desmos. Thanks for the interesting info, seems super cool!

I learned using plastic bags. Probably not as uniform in their motion as handkerchiefs, but worked to get the pattern down before moving to balls.

I'm not sure what features people consider important, as I've never used Spotify or other common podcast apps, but I've had a good experience getting podcasts through Patreon and then adding them to AntennaPod through their rss feed.

"Dumbing down" is an imprecise and inaccurate description of the most recent changes to the SAT.

The Collegeboard did indeed adjust the test to better appeal to students, but this was primarily done by shortening the length of the exam from ~ 3 hours to ~2 hours. To compensate for this, the test was updated to an adaptive format to present students with more questions of appropriate difficulty levels based on their performance.

The other main change, which the article highlights, was to shorten the reading passages. Yes, there are skills no longer being tested because of this change, but it's also allowed for a broader array of passages to be included. The new version of the test introduced poetry and novel question types involving logical reasoning and use of data. Which of these skills are more important for success in college and future careers is a worthwhile question to ask, but not one with an obvious answer.

This looks fantastic! I work in test preparation myself (though not for the LSAT) and this ticks all the boxes for the best approaches. I also really appreciate it being direct and opinionated without the obnoxious tendency of a lot of guides to denigrate alternatives.

Thanks for the nice words!

Yes, you do need to press white keys further back sometimes. Imagine trying to play on black keys with your thumb and pinky finger while playing a white key with your middle finger. You won't be pressing all the way at the back, but your finger will have to press between the black keys.

I'll have to go through this with my family; we have a number of terms we use that we're never sure if they're Canadian, non-regional uncommon words, or just things our family say.

My grandpa called toonies "bearbucks", which isn't listed, but is in one of the quotes on the toonie entry. No listing for "reef" as in yanking on something, though I don't know if that's a Canadianism or not.

Never heard of bearbucks but can confirm that "reefing" is pulling hard on something.

You reef lines (ropes) on a boat.

You reef sails (by using lines):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefing

Missed it by that much.

I've been increasingly concerned by packaged CS curricula that includes an overabundance of guidance and tooling. I've seen too many students complete a course (successfully!) and leave without any ability to start building projects of their own.

I don't want to end up as a curmudgeon griping about how "back in my day we didn't have an IDE!", as I'm in favor of giving students real world tools early, but I'm worried that we're filtering out some level of independence by sandboxing their learning so strictly.

I work teaching CS to a variety of age levels (admittedly mostly teenagers and older), and one thing I would recommend is broadening your consideration about what CS fundamentals might include. Picking up language syntax or new tools is easy enough at whatever age, but problem solving and planning skills are very tough to rebuild as they grow into adolescence.

One of my personal favorite resources is CS Unplugged. [1] It sidesteps any particular language or toolset in favor of pen-and-paper interaction.

[1] https://www.csunplugged.org/

I plan to begin and I grew up before the nineties. I probably know less than your kids. Paper is my native go-to. Thank you for this! Advice please: Can I get started using my now-antique Win 98 and Win7 hardware, while using phone or Win11 for online lookups?

It looks to me like there is consensus for Minecraft and Godot. I expect Minecraft to work on old hardware. How about Godot? Can it be used offline?

Going further, it seems like Language Aptitude was primarily significant in explaining variance in learning rate, measured by how many Codecademy lessons they completed in the allotted time, but wasn't explanatory for learning outcomes based on writing code or answering multiple-choice questions.

Seeing as Codecademy lessons are written in English, I would think this may just be a result of participants with higher Language Aptitude being faster readers.

I do think that language skills are undervalued for programming, if only for their impact on your ability to read and write documentations or specifications, but I'm not sure this study is demonstrating that link in a meaningful way.