The calculators also have a significant learning curve, and moving students over to new technology is a risky proposition when success in the classroom is so tied to the technology being used. Pearson textbooks feature illustrations of TI-series calculators alongside chapters so students can use their TI calculator in conjunction with the lesson plan. The primary driver of Texas Instruments' incumbency: TI-series calculators have been so prominent for so long, they've worked their way into the bloodstream of mathematics instruction in the U.S. Why does anyone still use a clunky, expensive graphing calculator? The American education system is addicted to Texas Instruments.
It's because Texas Instruments, the company that creates them, has a staggering monopoly in the field of high school mathematics. It's not because better tools aren't available they exist, and some of them are even free. Nearly 20 years later, students are still forced to use a prohibitively expensive piece of outdated technology. Technology has not yet killed the reliable old TI-83. The iPod made way for the smartphone, a computational powerhouse - the size of, well, a calculator - that is quickly taking over the world. In fact, the TI-83 existed for half a decade before the iPod, which became smaller and more powerful for generations before it, too, became obsolete. You could install the Internet on your computer with a CD from AOL. It was also the year of the Palm Pilot and Hotmail. Microsoft Office '97 debuted on a floppy disk. The TI-83 was released in 1996, when mobile phones had antennas and PCs were mostly used for word processing. Some students today will be the second generation to use it. You remember the TI-83: the brick-sized graphing machine you likely covered in stickers and used to send messages, spell out obscenities, play games and maybe do some math, if you were paying close enough attention. This year, high school juniors and seniors will buy a $100 calculator that's older than they are.
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