Catherine Crawford and Abigail Hoit

1
Using Palm-OS PDAs in Calculus

• Catherine Crawford and Abigail Hoit
• ICTM
• October 15, 2004

2
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

• Built-In Features
• Calendar, Phone, Address Book
• NotePad
• Basic Calculator
• Common Add-Ons
• Scientific Calculators
• Dictionaries
• Programming Software
• Games
• Documents to Go (similar to Word/Excel)

3
Palm m130

• Palm OS version 4.1
• 8 MB internal memory
• Color screen with backlight
• Rechargeable
• USB cradle
• 4.8 x 3.1 x 0.9, 5.4 oz
• DataViz Documents To Go included (Word and Excel)

4
Newer PalmOS-based PDAs

• Zire 21, 31, 72
• Tungsten C, E, T3, T5

5
Why We Wanted PDAs in Our Calculus Classes

• Can be used in place of graphing calculator for
  graphing and calculations
• Existing calculator labs still usable
• Small, convenient
• Have a lot of extra features
• Useful outside the math class
• More exciting for the students than graphing
  calculators
• Interactive interface

6
How We Use Them

• Use graphing calculator program on PDA instead of
  traditional graphing calculator
• Use programming language to create programs that
  the students run on their own
• (Initially) Use WebTarget to facilitate
  downloading of information to PDA.

7
Graphing Calculator

• EasyCalc
• Freeware
• Very stable
• Has all the features needed for calculus
• Lacks some statistical functions (curve-fitting)
• Does not deal well with rational exponents
• Programmable
• Designed by Ondrej Palkovsky

8
Programming Language

• SmallBasic
• Freeware
• Very stable
• Easy to use
• Does not create fully compiled programs
• Created by Nicholas Christopoulos

9
WebTarget

• Small hardware unit on classroom wall

10
WebTarget

• Allows the instructor to upload programs or
  information from the PC for the students to
  download in classroom to their PDAs.
• Allows students to use the internet in the
  classroom.
• Made by TriBeam Technologies.

11
Classroom Demonstration

• Margi
• PDA connects directly to the projection device
• Presenter-to-Go View PowerPoint Presentations
• Mirror Projects the only the PDA screen
• PDA Emulator
• Emulates the PDA on your PC run software,
  programs from PC
• Shows both the PDA screen and the buttons on PDA

12
EasyCalc Basic Screen
13
EasyCalc Optional Basic Screen
14
EasyCalc Trigonometrics Screen
15
EasyCalc Ten Scientific Screens
16
EasyCalc Combinatorics Screen
17
EasyCalc Graphing Setup
18
Graph Several Functions
19
Set Graphing Window
20
EasyCalc Graphing Display
21
Draw Zoom Rectangle with Stylus
22
After Zooming In
23
Setup Additional Functions
24
Trigonometric Window Settings
25
EasyCalc Graphing Display
26
Graphs Numerical Calculations
27
SmallBasic Programs We Wrote
28
Slope Graph Program
29
Slope Graph Program
30
Slope Graph Program
31
Slope Graph Program
32
Slope Graph Program
33
Slope Graph Program
34
Slope Graph Program
35
Slope Graph Program
36
Slope Graph Program
37
Estimating Area Program
38
Estimating Area Program
39
Estimating Area Program
40
Estimating Area Program
41
Estimating Area Program
42
Estimating Area Program
43
Estimating Area Program
44
Our SmallBasic Programs
45
Some of Our Programs

• Slope Graph
• Estimating Area
• Graph Shift
• Function Composition
• Definite Integrals
• Rates of Change
• Newtons Method
• Riemann Sums

46
Graph Shift Program
47
Function Composition Program
48
Function Composition Program
49
Function Composition Program
50
Function Composition Program
51
Function Composition Program
52
Function Composition Program
53
Definite Integrals Program
54
Definite Integrals Program
55
Definite Integrals Program
56
Definite Integrals Program
57
Definite Integrals Program
58
Definite Integrals Program
59
Rates of Change Program
60
Rates of Change Program
61
Rates of Change Program
62
SmallBasic Programming
63
SmallBasic Programming
64
(No Transcript)
65
(No Transcript)
66
Acknowledgement

• SBC/Ameritech Partnership Award for Independent
  Colleges

67
For More Information

• Web page for PDA program downloads
• http//www.elmhurst.edu/abigailh/
• (follow link at bottom to PDA Project)
• To email either of us
• crawford_at_elmhurst.edu
• abigailh_at_elmhurst.edu