One of the biggest problems with trying to teach mathematical concepts to students is it is hard to see how those concepts relate to the real world. For many students it is easier to understand if they can relate it to something they can see and understand. This is one of the ideas behind the Casio Prizm Graphic Calculator
Casio is a winner in the Design and Engineering Award Honoree for the Casio Prizm The Prizm is a next generation graphing calculator for the classroom. Students can use mathematical equations to create their own graphs over real life scenes, in this way the student can better understand the functions from the graphs that they created. The Casio Prizm has a high-resolution Blanview LCD color display with over 65,000 color. It has a full textbook style display with high-resolution fonts up to 18×24 dots (including blank dots) because of this the equations and text look just like they would in a text-book. The Blanview LCD uses low power it requires only 4 AAA batteries to run for up to 140 hours.
It has Casio’s proprietary “Picture Plot ” technology There are more than 55 types of picture included in the calculator which allows the student to create their own graphs over pictures displayed on the color LCD. This allows students to experiment by creating their own graphs over pictures of real-life scenes, and then understand the functions from the graphs that they created on their own. You can create multiple types of graph on it, including line, bar, circle. It allows color coding of specific values which makes it easier for the student to understand what is happening. It has an intuitive keyboard similar to a smart phone, The Prizm can be attached to the Casio Green Slim Projectors to project graphs and equations on a screen to be used in a classroom. It will be available in January 2011 for a MSRP of $129.99.