Calculators http://www.naec.org.uk Calculators don't normally fit people's ideas of educational computing, but the need to calculate numerical tables for navigation, tides and gunnery was a major driving force for the invention of algorithms and computers, and thus calculators hold a special place in the historical development of computing at its most mathematical and its teaching. daily 1 2008-07-09T06:10:55Z Noisy calculators http://www.naec.org.uk/stories/calculators Hundreds of students using mechanical calculators in an examination makes a distracting noise

For part of my part-time degree course (1970-75) I did a module, I think called “mathematical method” which involved doing complex computation using one of those handle driven machines.  It was fun practising and whirring the handle round at a rate of knots; however, at formal exam time I found myself in a huge hall with literally hundreds of fellow maths students, all whirring their handles so fast the the accumulated noise was deafening.  I just went into hysterics and am still surprised that I ever passed.

Lesson learnt:

[ Perhaps a lesson to be learnt here is that technology's side-effects can be distracting? Richard Millwood, editor]

]]> No publisher Peter Maher calculator story 2008-04-24T22:20:00Z Page Using a calculator in an arithmetic exam http://www.naec.org.uk/stories/using-a-calculator-in-an-arithmetic-exam Using a Brunsviga mechanical calculator for O-Grade Arithmetic examination

I was at school in Dumfries Scotland in 1970 sitting GCE 'O' Grade examinations (Scottish O-levels) in both Mathematics and Arithmetic. Being in the top set, we were allowed to sit the exam for Arithmetic using Brunsviga calculating machines. Funny when you think how people deride the use of the calculator now as somehow lazy. We all finished the exam in 30 mins and had to sit still until the end of the 1 hour allocated. There was a lot of whirring and bells ringing, a warning for when you go negative!.

Lesson learnt?

I suggest that it took higher order skills to solve the arithmetic problems we faced using this kind of calculator and it is this aspect of using technology that is often forgotten in the rush to criticise the use of such equipment as making things too easy.

]]> No publisher Richard Millwood calculator story 2008-07-15T14:45:00Z Page Electronic calculators and imperial units http://www.naec.org.uk/stories/electronic-calculators-and-imperial-units An early encounter with electronic calculators in quantity surveying My first encounter with 'devices' was when a colleague in the Local Government office in which we both worked, in 1969, persuaded the purchasing clerk to buy an electronic calculator. It cost the equivalent of 6 months of my salary.

We were Quantity Surveyors, still working with yards, feet and inches as well as pounds, shillings and pence so to be honest it didn't help us much until we'd carefully produced a table of decimal equivalences (£1/15/6 = £1.775). I know that a couple of contractors that we worked with went bust during the time - I've always had a niggling belief that our calculations didn't quite work out as they should...

So this lesson was 'find the right solution for your problem, rather than the other way round...'

]]> No publisher Bill Gibbon calculator story 2010-09-20T21:06:31Z Page