Desmos Private Beta is Live
Welcome to Desmos.
As recently as ten years ago, educational technology was mainly restricted to the iMacs in the computer lab and the TI-83s in every student’s backpack. While TI-83s are still ubiquitous (and that’s part of the problem), things have changed.
Technology is permeating schools at a rapid rate. Kids and teachers have smart phones in their pockets, computers in their backpacks, and Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) at the front of the classroom. Twenty-Eight percent of classrooms and counting (in the US alone) have IWBs, and the software is only beginning to catch up. That’s where Desmos comes in.
The problem is one of fragmentation. Educational hardware has developed so rapidly in the last decade, with the massive emergence of large projector-based touchscreens, and the coming influx of tablets. The trouble is that each platform comes bundled with different software, introducing all kinds of problems with cross-platform compatibility and even forward/backward compatibility within a platform.
We like to think of this not as a problem but a huge opportunity. Desmos is a unifying standard for interactive content creation. Almost every device now comes with a browser, and the web is the ultimate example of content designed to work across platforms. So, we’ve created browser-based software to eliminate the problems of cross-platform compatibility. Built right in are tools for uploading files, creating interactive lessons, and easily creating beautifully formatted equations and graphs (sorry, TI-83).
Our software also takes advantage of the instantaneous, collaborative nature of the web. Invite others to collaborate with you, live, on a lesson or assignment. Everyone can work together in the same space - this will only become more useful as more people are connected to the web, more classrooms are wired, and wireless internet continues to spread and improve.
By building software that takes advantage of the magical elements of touchscreens, we will unlock the potential of educational hardware and open up the world of interactive content.
Use Desmos to easily build rich, interactive lessons that work on any touchscreen. Share these lessons with the community, or invite other users to log in and collaborate with you, live.
Sign up today for our private beta at Desmos.com.
