Were Calculators More “Subversive” Teaching Tools Than iPads?

Phil Nichols of The Atlantic writes of his history with the venerable Texas Instrument TI-83 calculator, in a piece on The Atlantic site and poses the proposition that “educational technologies should be more like graphing calculators and less like iPads." The calculator, with its dull, black casing, ease of programming, and acceptance in classrooms made it a perfect piece of "subversive" hardware--hardware that embraces self-directed learning, failure, and imagination. Do iPads, conversely, make learning too easy?