Have you noticed the option to add an image to a Desmos graph?

Editing a graph page recently I noticed you can add an image…

Clearly I had to experiment with this facility, so remembering the beautiful dance moves poster I thought I’d see how accurate it is!

Desmos & Images – select the image for graph page

Desmos circle – select the image for graph page

The modulus function looks pretty good – as does the circle (though it really should not be labelled just x²+y²)

Anyway – upload an image – save your page and challenge your students to fit a graph!

Remembering a holiday in Barcelona – I thought I would add the graph of cosh x to this photo.. Select the image to see the Desmos graph page.

Casa Milà Barcelona, photograph by David Young

An update – thank you @Desmos – love this!

Note the use of the drop down menu in each section.

Dancing with Desmos- select image & dance!

And for a little more mathematical dancing – can you dance the Bubble Sort?

This week I have been updating and tidying up a companion site to this one: Mathematics Starters and Plenaries. I have added some new sections, including Bell Work which seems appropriate here and I will update in future with any more ideas. If you have not fully explored Transum’s excellent Starter of the Day site then do have another look, there are some gems here – more details below.

So – it’s the holidays – time for some updating and tidying up. With Easter approaching I thought I’d update the WolframAlpha slideshow with the non-chocolate variety of Easter Eggs!

…and a reminder of what a fantastic resource WolframAlpha is for checking work – see the recently updated series of WolframAlpha pages.

I have been busy putting together many of the very useful calculators and tools for checking work. These have previously been on a site of their own but I have now decided they are more appropriately placed on Mathematics for Students. I have also added a link (Calculators & Tools) on the right hand side here in the Links section. I have taken the opportunity to do some major updating and I will develop this further in the coming months.

I like to use tools like this in class to encourage students to use them independently for checking their work. I know this strategy works – one of my Year 13 students announced during a homework discussion earlier this year that she knew the answer in the text was wrong (it was) because she checked it on WolframAlpha! Happily I have had many similar comments.