* NOTES ON MAKING TI CALCULATOR STUDY CARDS *

Greg Johnson, October 2005


STUDY CARD CHRACTERISTICS FOR TI-83, TI-84 FAMILY:

Largest image: 96 x 52 pixels
Text: 23 characters x 8 rows
TI-83 has variable pitch font!  Row could have 23 M's or 31 l's.  Keep text simple to simplify porting from TI-83 to TI-89.
Some special characters:   °ºÃŒ‹¯'ñ›²±‰  a-b øõ
These display with TI-83P Mini Sans font as degree, superscript 2, theta, etc.


STUDY CARD CHARACTERISTICS FOR TI-89 FAMILY:

Largest image: 160 x 77 pixels
Text: 23 characters x 9 rows
Fixed pitch font.
Some special characters:  ª°®§üœž"ˆŸŒ
These display with TI89PC font as degree, superscript 2, theta, etc.


STUDY CARD IMAGES AND THE MICROSOFT PAINT ACCESSORY:

Screen captures from a TI-83 are 2x actual size.  To use these as base images, use Image, Stretch/Skew, Horizontal 50%, Vertical 50%.

Set Image, Attributes:  Width, Height (maximums listed above); Colors Black & White.

For Font, select MS Windows "Small Fonts" with 6 or 7 points, possibly bold.  Pick distinct labels; lower-case "q" and "a" look almost alike.  Upper-case "Q" and "A" have distinct shapes, are bigger, and are easier to read.

I developed images first for the smaller screen of the TI-83, then ported them to the TI-89.  This can work, but I probably should re-do some images specifically for the TI-89.  Even without porting to consider, image elements such as labels should be as large as possible to be as readable as possible.  Horizontal and vertical lines usually work best at least 2 pixels thick, and other lines usually at least 3 pixels thick.

Images on StudyCards Creator may be distorted when they are not distorted on the calculator, and vice versa.  TI has noticed this bug.  I have asked that TI improve the font mappings of StudyCards Creator.  For example, characters such as _temp_ (degrees) and _squared_ (superscript 2) exist for both TI-83 and TI-89 calculators, but are not mapped.


CONTENT CONSIDERATIONS:

I feel study cards should test and reinforce recall and application of important definitions.  Skills are better developed through problem solving.  Certainly, a question might require a little thought and re-orienting.  But a study card question should require neither multiple screens nor a pencil nor a calculator.

The "answer side" of these cards often contains additional connections.

Multiple choice study cards can cause the reader to consider alternate representations and alternate symbolism, so they are actually more likely to connect to a deeper concept than to terminology or specific symbols.  For example, one version of a question references "longest side of a right triangle" while another uses the typical "hypotenuse".  Variant labels and orientations are given to triangles.

Multiple choice study cards should have at least two different versions of each kind of problem.  This offers alternate views.  This also makes the reader consider the content of the question, rather than superficial cues.

The Trig study cards could be improved with more such variations.  It would be easy to trim out the the multiple-choice and make a version as open-answer "self-study" cards.