Touch Here to Calculate

TI takes its calculator technology to the iPad with the TI-Nspire and CAS apps. The software emulates the layout and button sequences of the TI-Nspire and CAS calculators but uses the iPad’s entire display and touch keyboard to do everything from simple addition to graphing quadratics and solving higher order equations. It’s aimed at 7-th through 12-th graders, comes with several built in lessons and costs $30 per app. It works only with second and third generation iPads and like all iPads the TI app can’t be used during most standardized tests.

Teachers get a free 1-year license of TI’s education software with the purchase of the iPad app, but it can be a tough system to teach and use without some training. Enter Wiley’s TI-Nspire App for the iPad for Dummies booklet, which is a downloadable freebee. Just get the Acrobat file and you’ll be ready for letting your fingers do the calculating. For things more involved and specialized you can watch how-to videos on Atomic Learning or use the online version of the Dummies book for the old-school calculator.