Yes, math changes, but it's moreso the presentation that's ancient. The formatting is so retro that it seriously damages legibility while simultaneously failing to give students a taste of actual mathematical discourse, and the coding in the text is obsolete.
That students are still required to use TI-89's in class is a travesty itself -- TI-89's are horribly obsolete in modern practice and really only serve to hamper cheating on exams. At best, teaching students with TI-89's to better prepare them for exams might be justified as a trick to inflate their scores, but it still seems like a wasted opportunity to acquire a working familiarity with actual tools that students might actually use in the future.
The BASIC code is worse yet as it can't even be argued for as an exam-score-inflation trick; it's simply obsolete. Students learning coding ought to learn modern languages.
The focus should be on what's best for the students. And this isn't it. The retro stuff belongs in a museum.
That students are still required to use TI-89's in class is a travesty itself -- TI-89's are horribly obsolete in modern practice and really only serve to hamper cheating on exams. At best, teaching students with TI-89's to better prepare them for exams might be justified as a trick to inflate their scores, but it still seems like a wasted opportunity to acquire a working familiarity with actual tools that students might actually use in the future.
The BASIC code is worse yet as it can't even be argued for as an exam-score-inflation trick; it's simply obsolete. Students learning coding ought to learn modern languages.
The focus should be on what's best for the students. And this isn't it. The retro stuff belongs in a museum.