Des-blog

This week’s Friday Fave requires a little help from your friends. System of Two Linear Equations begins by asking a simple question: Is it possible for two numbers to have a difference of 8, but a sum of 1?

We’re not asking for examples at this point, nor are we expecting you to have techniques ready at hand. We’re just asking for your instincts, and in a sufficiently large class of algebra students we expect some yeses, several nos, and quite a few maybes. Discuss.

Next up, we’ll get specific. Think of two numbers with a difference of 8 and give us the larger one. We’ll guess the second one, plot them both as an ordered pair and ask you to think about what the collection of everyone’s points will look like.

You see what we did there? We created a social experience by connecting you with your friends to discuss some informal ideas, and then we made those informal ideas more formal one step at a time. Pretty soon, you’re writing equations for lines and noticing that their intersection is a number pair whose difference is 8 and whose sum is 1.

More constraints and opportunities to think, share, collaborate, and discuss follow. An informal question—Is it possible?—introduces an invitation to develop some important algebraic techniques.

That’s what makes System of Two Linear Equations this week’s Friday Fave, and while you’re thinking of systems of equations (and inequalities!) here are a few more activities to play with.

Playing Catch Up

Polygraph: Systems of Linear Inequalities

Racing Dots

Parlez-vous français?

Maybe you speak French and maybe you don’t but thanks to a small collection of bilingual Des-users, those who do can use about 80 different activities at teacher.desmos.com. ¿Habla espanol? Our collection of Spanish translated activities is smaller but growing. Plus we have several in Dutch, and one each in Italian and Hebrew.

All you need to do is search Français, Español, Italiano, Nederlands, or עברית to find activities that some diligent user has put the time and effort into translating.

Would YOU like to be one of these diligent users? Get in touch! Dan coordinates this work—email him at dan@desmos.com (in English, please!) and he’ll let you know what it takes to get up and running.

A dedicated worldwide user base with the expertise to translate activities is what makes this week’s Friday Fave possible. C’est magnifique!

The Friday Fave is keeping it simple this week. One feature that makes certain situations just a bit more delightful.

Zooming in the Desmos graphing calculator has always been easy. Scroll wheels and track pads alike zoom your view in or out quickly and smoothly.

Recently, we introduced a little bit of magic to give you just a bit more control over your zooming. Hover your cursor over an axis, press SHIFT, click and drag.

Now you’re changing the scale on one axis at a time. A simple little upgrade to your zooming experience is this week’s Friday Fave.