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Why should we use online tools?
“Math teachers need to realize that in an age of focusing on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, it is critical that we encourage and stimulate young people in mathematics classes through technology.”
- Furner and Marinas (2016)
In Desmos calculator, when functions are typed in, there are sliders that you could include. When you move the sliders, the graph also change. For example, you could change the concavity of parabolas and slopes of linear functions.
Most Desmos class activities allow users to move around figures and dots to complete the activities.
In Geogebra calculator, you could plot points and connect them to construct polygons. There are several commands where you could make perpendicular lines, bisectors, tangent lines, and more. This is a great tool to show students how to construct them online.
Dynamic visual aid
Dynamic visual aid
Our students need help with visualizing how the shapes change and how changing variable affect various aspects in angles. It is difficult to show those dynamic changes on whiteboards and OneNote... However, online tools makes them easy; just drag the objects and lines around!
*These videos do not have audio.
DynamicVisualGeo.mp4DynamicVisualDesmos.mp4interactive activities
interactive activities
Not all students could learn from lectures and note-takings. Some may need interactive projects and groupworks to try the problems on their own and understand the concept. Small groupworks could be done in class such as station activities, but online activities make students more engaged and easier for teachers to monitor their process.
*Teacher's view in Desmos activity.
Graphing calculator
Graphing calculator
These 2 resources have great FREE graphing calculators for everyone to use. Teachers could use them to demonstrate to students how graphs of functions change when we add sliders to coefficients, how the measures of angles change when we move line segments, etc. Students could use them to calculate values of x, graph their functions, and more without having to pay $100 for a Ti-84 calculator!
These calculators are also user-friendly; they do not have numerous buttons like regular graphing calculators do. Students simply type in their equations or drag points around on online calculators. This is also good practice for students since some standardized tests require students to use online calculators.
More information about graphing calculators could be found here.
Verifying answers
Verifying answers
As math teachers, we always tell our students to VERIFY their answers to make sure they get the correct solution. What if we want them to verify that their verifications are correct? All you have to do is type in equations in Desmos to solve for variables or intersection points and construct geometric figures in Geogebra to look for the coordinate points!
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