Des-blog

The Fave is in a calculator mood, and will keep this brief.

The making of movable points used to be quite mysterious, but no longer. This is because of the new “Drag” toggle. Click and hold as though you were going to change the color, and you’ll see the option to drag your point around.

You can set things to drag only vertically, only horizontally, or both. It works whether you originally specified your points numerically or with sliders.

More control over movable points is this week’s Friday Fave. Short and sweet and with a million uses.

Desmos is excited to see loads of you at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual Conference in Washington DC this month.

Here’s where you’ll find us. First, two special events outside of the normal conference hours.

Desmos Preconference
Wednesday, April 25th • 9AM-12PM • 1PM-4PM

Are you in town early? Skip the sightseeing. Those monuments will be there next time. We won’t! Join us at our preconference in the morning (9-12) or afternoon (1-4).

Josephine Butler Parks Center
2437 15th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20009

Math Trivia and Happy Hour
Thursday, April 26th • 6:30pm-9:30pm

Come by for the company. Stay around for the drinks & trivia with your host Dan Meyer.

Clyde’s - Piedmont Room
707 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Next here are some conference sessions from Desmos faculty and fellows.

Technology That Thinks WITH Students, Not FOR Students
Eli Luberoff
Thursday, April 26, 2018 • 11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Salon C

Being Right and Wrong in Different, Interesting Ways
Nolan Doyle
Thursday, April 26, 2018 • 1:30 PM-2:30 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, room 154 AB

Full Stack Lessons
Dan Meyer
Friday, April 27, 2018 • 8:00 A.M.–9:00 A.M.
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Ballroom A

Applying the Five Practices to Visual Patterns
Michael Fenton
Friday, April 27, 2018 • 9:45 AM-11:00AM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, room 207 B

Transform a Worksheet to Build Equity and Engagement in the Classroom with Desmos Activity Builder
Jade White, Linda Saeta
Friday, April 27, 2018 • 9:45 AM-11:00 AM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, room 152 B

From Counting to Calculus: All Students Are Mathematicians
Christopher Danielson
Friday, April 27, 2018 • 4:30 PM-5:30 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Ballroom A

Math Task Makeover with Desmos Activity Builder
Bob Lochel, Michael Fenton
Friday, April 27, 2018 • 4:30 PM-5:30 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, room 146 A

In our ongoing quest to trick kids into thinking that math is fun, our in-house gamification team has been digging through reams of primary research. Our first challenge: making the notoriously stultifying Marbleslides into a task students might at least pretend to enjoy.

We quickly rejected the idea that mathematics is inherently beautiful and motivating. The research on Intellectual Need, for example, is sparse and unsubstantiated. We urge readers to find any instance of people seeking out mathematics except under duress.

Instead we dove into other disciplines. We considered economics - e.g. bribing students. We considered Marbleslides badges and Snapchat filters. At the end of the day, the solution had been right in front of us all along: Marbleslides just needed sound effects.

Introducing: Mariobleslides. Try it at teacher.desmos.com/marbleslides-lines

=== Update, April 2nd ===

The sound effects in Marbleslides are actually part of our ongoing effort to push the limits on accessibility for vision-impaired and blind users of Desmos. They’re here to stay! To enable Marbleslides’ Sound Effects, type Alt+A on windows or Option+A on mac. For more keyboard shortcuts in Marbleslides, scroll to the bottom of this page:

teacher.desmos.com/marbleslides-lines