Graphing functions is a great way for students to visualise and understand the behaviour of different mathematical functions. Thinking back to my days in school, teachers were using old Casio graphing calculators which had a 4cm screen and took 5 minutes to set up. To be honest, it was more engaging to watch the teacher plot the function by hand on the blackboard!
Fast forward a few years, and there are countless ICT tools which can be used for this purpose. To the contrary of popular opinion, Microsoft Office, in particular excel, is not the only tool which can be used for this computational mathematics and visualisation. In fact, there are many better options out there.
Here’s a video showing how to graph functions in excel,
Tedious huh?!
Here’s where DESMOS comes in! Desmos is a free graphing and teaching tool for math. In addition to plotting equations, classroom activities are available to help students learn about a variety of math concepts. For example, students can learn how to transform periodic functions by trying to slide marbles through points on a graph. Or, they can plug in their own equation and see what kind of graph pops up; sliders allow students to adjust values and see what happens. Users can also click directly on the graph to find the coordinates of points of intersection, maxima, and minima.
Here’s a demonstration,
What are your thoughts? Will you use DESMOS in your math lessons?
Ramee's Teaching Blog 