What's Desmos?

Two of my new colleagues were talking to each other about their TI-84s today and trying to trouble shoot some issues. They looked over to me, and I said, "I don't know. I don't use it. I use Desmos." (Granted, I teach Algebra 1, not an AP class where you are more or less forced into the TI world.) They looked at me and asked, "What's Desmos?"

It's sort of crazy to me to think that people still don't know what Desmos is. I love it. Sometimes I graph things just for fun or because I'm curious about something. Since they gave me the perfect opening to evangelize, I launched in to what I love about Desmos. 

I always start with the fact that I can enter an equation in almost any form. I'm not restricted to y= which is incredibly liberating. So I graph a line in standard form. Then I graph one in point slope form. Just because I am. And guess what? They intersect. Do you know how I can figure out the coordinates of that intersection point? Click on it. Very intuitive. That same process on a TI is about 14 button pushes. By the time you get through the "how to do it," they've forgotten why they even want to do it. 

Since I keep hearing about the card sorts, I decided to go there next since I hadn't actually played with one yet. We picked the one about quadratic forms. They were immediately impressed. I showed them the teacher dashboard and what you can see while (and after) the students work on the activity. 

The teacher who has precalculus this year was so excited at the possibilities. And I'm excited to have another math teacher on board :)