Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Found Calculators?

New submitter Covalent writes "I'm a science teacher and have, over the years, accumulated a number of lost graphing calculators (mostly TI-83s). After trying to locate the owners, I have given up and have been loaning them out to students as needed. I want to something more nerd-worthy with them, though. I would feel wrong for selling them. What is the best use for bunch of old calculators?"

Doing the right thing

[Jerry Smith]

You're loaning them to the needy. Doing good can be nerdy too.

Do what you're doing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that loaning them out to needy students is the best possible use for them. Don't change a thing!

how many?

[stranger_to_himself]

I also have a number of graphing calculators. That number being 1. How many is 'a number'! If its a complex or irrational number, your post would be more interesting. Otherwise, apart from some kind of modern art installation, the calculator lending library you already have seems like a good answer.

Keep loaning them out.

[Revotron]

There are plenty of kids out there whose parents won't justify spending $100 on anything educational, so just keep those calculators on hand in your classroom and loan them out to students who need them. In doing so, you're giving underprivileged kids the same resources that more well-off children always have at their disposal, and hopefully by having the same tools as their peers, you can keep them engaged, interested, and learning.

That's nerd-worthy to me.

Before selling or donating ....

[PPH]

... check with your school policies on handling lost and found crap. I assume these were lost on school property, so the school has a say in their disposition.

Loaning is probably OK, but before you donate or otherwise give up possession, check the rules.

Keep using them as loaners

[gman003]

I don't know about your school, but in every one of my middle school and high school math classes, students always needed more loaner calculators than they had. (my college banned calculators from math classes, which didn't really hurt since all I took was Calc II).

If you find that students are consistently being responsible and bringing their own, I suggest donating them to another school, so they can get some use from them.

There's not really anything interesting you can do with them - they aren't powerful enough to do anything other than do simple math, or perhaps play a mediocre Wolfenstein clone on (yes, it's real - google "ti-83 doom app"). The displays are shit, the processor is pathetic, and the input mechanism is severely lacking.

Give to the needy and nerdy

[Idarubicin]

I hope that your school system isn't requiring its students to buy expensive graphing calculators out of their own (or their parents' own) pockets, but that's another diatribe.

If you have more calculators than you need for your own lending program, and the other math teachers (if any) at your school are also adequately equipped, then share them with other schools in your area. There's probably a classroom not too far down the road - perhaps across the tracks? - where they don't have a large number of kids carelessly abandoning valuable electronics.

Give them to Charities

[realsilly]

Donate them to local Charities or over seas charities.
The Lend them out program you're doing works well also.

Re:Give them away

[Squiddie]

I'd say give them to students that look like they have need for them and no way to get one, though the idea of just using them in-class is pretty good. Maybe make a prize out of it?

Mod parent insightful

[davidwr]

You don't want to get fired for trying to do the right thing.

Re:Give them away

[CubicleZombie]

Give away?

Sell them. You're getting paid about 1/4 of what you're worth. Sell 'em.

You could give them to needy students, each who can't afford one but still has a new Nintendo DS, of you could pocket some cash and take your significant-other out to dinner. If you ever get a night off from grading papers or writing lesson plans.

Re:Give them away

[50000BTU_barbecue]

How are they junk? A TI-83 can run for months on AAA batteries you can get at the dollar store, doesn't need constant software attention like upgrades, doesn't contain personal information and can't get trojaned or otherwise compromised.

It turns on instantly, does what it's supposed to do correctly the same way each time, and turns off instantly. I have a TI-83 on my desk at all times. The user interface can't be beat either.

Re:Give to the needy and nerdy

[gmarsh]

Do this. Talk to the math teachers at your school, find out if they've got any poor students that need them. And find out there's any other schools in the area that would have a use for them.

There's lots of single parents and otherwise poor families that can barely scrape together school supplies for their kids, let alone buy the graphic calculator that they would need to get into a precalc or AP math. Something simple like one of these old calculators could turn a kid's life around. Seriously.

Re:Doing the right thing

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Absolutely! Loan them to students who need them. There is no better use.

Re:Give them away

[Verdatum]

Being Junk is debatable. What matters is they retail for $100 and up, and scores of high school math courses require them. My Algebra II class (in 1998) might as well have been retitled to "How to use your TI-83 calculator" Class tutorials often worked buttonpress by buttonpress. I lost 3 of them over the course of my high school career (two were stolen from my bookbag), and this was certainly no fun for my parents.

Yes, I realize the older models sell for cheap on ebay. I purchased my 3rd this way and still have it (I suspect it was stolen too), but when you've got an assignment due tomorrow, and even if you get an extension from the teacher, you risk falling behind, so you often bite your lip and pay Best Buy prices.

I wish they weren't so expensive. They shouldn't be. With the exception of some tiny crappy memory expansions, they haven't changed in like 20 years, yet the price tag has only gone up. I'd love to see some project like OLPC destroy this monopoly.

Re:Give them away

[davidbrit2]

The user interface can't be beat either.

Yes it can. See: HP 48GX/SX.

Re:Give them away

[CubicleZombie]

Every student in my wife's 2nd grade class qualifies for the free and reduced lunch program, which puts them all at or below the poverty level. And they all seem to have Nintendo DS's.

All I'm saying is, teachers need to stop using their personal resources in the classroom. As long as they're willing to give things to the students, the school system will continue to encourage them to do so. Let the parents figure out how to provide calculators for their children. That's not the teacher's responsibility.

Your posts are insightful. You don't need to be an asshole.

Re:how many?

[geekoid]

incorrect.
You have a calculator. You wouldn't use 'Of'
I know you're trying to tell everyone how smart you are, but all I am saying is 'you failed'.

Re:Give them away

[Beardo the Bearded]

"Nobody poor should ever get to enjoy themselves."

Look, I understand prioroty spending and budgeting, but you have to look at the costs and the humanitarian factor here.

A DS will cost what, $150? Maybe it's a birthday present. I know that a fair number of the families at my kids' school don't get breakfast every day, and at Gift Day time, it gets worse. Why? The families can afford food and clothing to get by, but then when you add in $X for presents, it doesn't work out so well. That's where hampers can come in. They don't have to splurge on the food for the feast, it takes the pressure off the food bill for a couple of weeks, and suddenly they've got a couple hundred for presents.

Maybe the kid's got a paper route and works their butt off to pay their phone bill / buy DS games. I had a paper route when I was a kid.

Now, let's look at the cost of lunches. It's going to run, let's say, $2.50 for a lunch for the kids. If the parents are below the poverty level (which you would if you're making min. wage) that lets you take that $2.50 a day and spend it on other things. Clothes. Bling. That's about 3 months worth of subsidized lunches for a DS. (I know, you're all like "THATS MY TAX MONEY I DONT USE GOVT MONEY AT ALL" when you're drinking EPA-approved water, driving on DOT roads approved by a PE, in a car regulated by the NHTSA, and all while you're protected by the police, fire department, and military. But other than that, no tax dollars, right?)

And bling is fucking important when you're in high school.

Re:Give them away

[Anonymous Coward]

And bling is fucking important when you're in high school.

It is? Only if you're a superficial moron or want to fit in with superficial morons. Hopefully it's the latter and not the former.

Re:Give them away

[TheRealMindChild]

I could have never afforded a TI graphing calculator in high school, and it was required for Calculus, so the school gave them out akin to a text book. You had your serial number recorded and if you lost it, you didn't graduate until you paid for it. The things I was able to learn and do punching on that thing day in and out were infinitely valuable. I was even able to sign out a second one so that I didn't have to purge the programs I made for class. If there is such an excess, giving them to people who really can use them is a great idea

Re:Give them away

[EmperorOfCanada]

Best idea so far. The TI-83 is a good enough graphing calculator for most. I can't imagine the sticker shock parents in low income homes get when their kid says we need a $100+ calculator. Also how many kids are avoiding higher level math because their household can't afford a calculator? Also the used market for graphing calculators dries up at the beginning of the school year.

I was on a field trip school field trip(winter) and one immigrant kid was crying he was so cold. I loaned him my oversized gloves and hat that day and gave the principal some high-tech gloves and hat to give to the kid the next day. There is no way that kid is getting a graphing calculator out of his parents.

I ask my kids if any of their classmates need a computer as I often end up with an older computer every few months. Again critical for homework but unaffordable in many homes.

We slashdotters probably look at things like the raspberry pi as a toy for some cool robot project but personally I suspect that one of the biggest impacts they will have will be a small number of industrious kids who make them their home computer and then are able to get ahead educationally.

So to the OP, you have a pile of life changing resources there; so go change some lives.

Re:Give them away

[CubicleZombie]

It is truly admirable that teachers will spend their own salary on supplies, but they need to stop doing it. The school board will eventually make up the difference, but will be happy to let them dip into their own pockets until then. I also think they need to go home every day at 5PM and leave their work behind, unless there's overtime pay (some states do, most don't).

Lets say your company sent you to install some software at a client site, but you have to supply the server. Would you do it? Maybe you would, if you were passionate enough about your job. Would your boss expect it the next time? Oh yeah.

And in regards to the federal level comment, school shouldn't be part of the Federal Government at all. Lets keep the taxes, the revenue, and the expenditure at the local level. Then, if you have a problem with the way schools are run, you can take it up with the county. Unless, that is, you prefer things like No Child Left Behind.