Desmos

DESMOS

"We imagine a world of universal math literacy, where no student thinks that math is too hard or too dull to pursue. We believe the key is learning by doing. When learning becomes a journey of exploration and discovery, anyone can understand – and enjoy! – math." - Desmos

Desmos has expedited the process of graphing in huge way. Not only is Desmos fun to play with, but it is an incredibly powerful teaching tool. My students use it to check their handwritten graphs, quickly interpret functions, and locate special points on graphs. It's also very powerful to show the affects of constraints and parameters on graphs instantaneously.

As more and more schools move to 1:1 technology in the classroom, tools like Desmos will quickly reduce the need for expensive and cryptic graphing calculators. The calculators that we, as teachers, have grown up with are trying to keep up by incorporating new features like wi-fi and color screens. Even with these new features, I'm finding my students preferring to plug an equation into Desmos on their phone, tablet or laptop because of the more intuitive design.

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KEY FEATURES

• Intuitive - The design of Desmos is so easy to learn. It incorporates some of the math type that we're used to from word and our calculators so functions can be typed in ways that make sense. You don't need to know a bit of computer programming to understand what to type in. 
• Inspiring - Desmos.com showcases the incredible work that users have created. In fact there is a community built around the cool things that people have built using Desmos at dailydesmos.com.
• Diverse Input Methods - You can create  your graph by entering an equation (with or without constraints) or typing in a table.
• Sliders - Want to demonstrate how certain coefficients affect the shape of a graph? Try typing in y = Ax+B into Desmos to create sliders for A and B. Slide them around to demonstrate the affects of A and B on the graph.
• Shading - Graphing inequalities becomes easy (and artistic). Playing around to create something? Try adding color to your graph using inequalities and selecting a color.
• Find Your Point - Want to know what the x and y coordinates of that point are? Just click on the graph at the point you're interested in. You can even double click on important points like intercepts, maxima and minima to make them stick to your graph.
• Google maps like zoom - Remember spending 10 minutes with your students just trying to get the window of their graph right? Not with Desmos. They've created the graphing experience to act like Google Maps. Click the plus and minus to zoom in and out or create your own window in the settings menu.
• Digital Textbook integration - As we move further into the digital age and the increasing popularity of online texts, Desmos is beginning to get embedded into more and more digital texts. It seems that the authors of these texts are realizing the power of Desmos too!

IMPROVEMENTS

• Education forward: As a teacher, it would be great if Desmos would sponsor some teachers to build lessons around their software and turn them into online lessons. Similar to how Khan Academy built entire lessons around the curriculum they had created.
• Printability: I've found that adding an image of the graph that was created doesn't always print well, especially when dropped on to a worksheet or test. It'd be great if there were more options besides "Projector Mode" to customize appearance and make screen captures a little easier.