ABOUT THE BOOK: The publisher is William R. Parks: www.wrparks.com Dr. Gerald Rising and Dr. Deborah Moore-Russo, of the University at Buffalo and Dr. Eileen Schoaff of Buffalo State College wrote "Program Your Calculator," to give a basic introduction to programming with the TI-84 calculator through a series of interesting examples. This book gives excellent explanations suitable for home schooling. James Easton, instructor at Erie Community College in Buffalo, NY, finds "Program Your Calculator" a very useful text for both individual and classroom settings. Easton said, "Students gain much insight into mathematical concepts through programming. The book opens that opportunity to them and triples the power of the calculator." Professor Rising explains why he considers their book important: "Check any science lab or engineering workplace and you will find an extraordinary number of hand-held calculators in daily use, but too few users employ the programming power of their calculators. By programming them according to the instructions this text provides, they can make their tiny devices respond to the specific problems in which they are interested: solving complex equations, replicating experiments, modeling real world applications and creating exquisite graphs. The power of the calculator increases significantly." "Programming was a central part of the school mathematics curriculum in the past. Today it is rarely taught except in specialized computer science courses. In Germany and Japan the situation is different: calculator programming is widely taught and applied." Rising says he hopes "Program Your Calculator" will address our nation's deficiency: "Our book is a brief, straightforward presentation that can be used in school or college classrooms or by individual learners." A simple example of a program Rising wrote called "Lottery" models the national MegaMillions lottery. It allows users to "buy" as many dollar tickets as they wish and see the probable outcome. "Running this program," he says, "shows in striking fashion what little return players receive from their 'investments.'" ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Gerald R. Rising is State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus, University at Buffalo has been author or co-author of over a dozen textbooks and 100 journal articles. A more recent book is "Inside Your Calculator: From Simple Programs to Significant Insights" (Wiley, 2007). Professor Rising has taught at the University of Minnesota, New York University, University of Connecticut, Cornell University, and Manchester University in England. He served on the Joint American Statistical Association and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Committee on the Curriculum in Statistics and Probability, and served as liaison officer between the Mathematical Association of America and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Eileen K. Schoaff is Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, Buffalo State College. She earned a SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Schoaff has written two books and a number of articles. Deborah Moore-Russo is Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at the University at Buffalo. She taught mathematics for five years at St. Gregory's College in Oklahoma and for eight years at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. She has been author or co-author of two mathematics textbooks and 50 articles .Key Topics: hand-held calculator, TI-84 calculator, Texas Instruments, TI-83 calculator, programming, writing programs, computer programming, BASIC, John Kemeny, Thomas Kurtz, program instructions, Casio FX series, Casio calculator programming, program editing, debugging, control structures, goto, if-then, if-then-else, equation, random, and randomizing
