At the moment I am introducing calculus to my sixth-form classes and I wanted to use Desmos to illustrate drawing a tangent to a curve. A quick search found a page I copied to my own account, I then modified the page to show a simple quadratic (f(x) = x²).

Desmos – tangent to a curve

Something I have been meaning to do for a while is try the folder feature on Desmos, a rather neat way to create a tidy looking set of items.

Desmos page notes

Show / hide folder contents

Folders are easy to create:

Desmos – add folder item

Having created a folder, press enter and the next item will be placed in the folder. If you want to add items later, ‘nudge’ your item into the contents of the folder.

I recommend that students use Desmos to help them understand any questions they do; finding the equation of a tangent to a curve is a good example, Desmos can be used very quickly to illustrate a correct (or not!) solution.

For checking calculus examples students can use WolframAlpha, examples are included in the fourth slideshow here).

Update ….and along came @Desmos! (select either picture for graph page)

Tangent to curve – fabulous version by Desmos!

Thank you @Desmos! (Think I’ll put in a few requests!)