Introduction

What is it?

Though Desmos started off as an online graphing calculator, these days it is so much more!

There are four "areas" on Desmos:

• Graphing calculator (www.desmos.com/calculator)
• Student portal (http://student.desmos.com)
• Teacher portal (http://teacher.desmos.com)
• Level up (learning) section (http://learn.desmos.com)

Access to all of these areas is completely free, though you need an account to access everything (i.e. to save your graphs in the graphing calculator, or to bookmark teaching activities). We will get to that in a bit.

Task 1:

Watch the video below to learn the Desmos graphing calculator basics.

When you are finished the video, click here to access Desmos graphing calculator and practice some of the tips that were mentioned in the video. Specifically, try the following:

• Plot a line with a slope (rate of change) of 2
  • Use the cursor to find the co-ordinates of any three points on the line
  • Change the colour and style of the line
• Plot a single point using co-ordinates (don't forget your brackets!)
  • Change the colour of the point. Can you move the point by dragging it? Can you label the point?
• Use the Add Item menu to add a table. Try putting some data in the table.
  • Change the colour of the points from the table. Can you make the points on the graph draggable?
• ADVANCED: create a new item and try a regression by typing: y1~mx1+b
  • What happens when you drag points from your table around on the graph?

Click here to go to the next task: Desmos Activities