Desmos plus INBs — Conic Sections Edition

One of the things I have always been frustrated with is the crappy way example graphs look in student notebooks.

Well, no more.

For my conic sections notes sessions in Precalculus, I'm using Desmos-created graphs with all their equational and slider glory.

Here's how I ensure kids have readable, meaningful examples in their INBs:

I've created some modified graphs of the Desmos parabola graphs — one with a vertical axis and one with a horizontal axis.

I take a screen shot of the equation drawer PLUS the graph and paste it into an Omni Graffle document. For those of you playing our home game on the Mac, that's:

• Press Cmd-Shift-4 to enter screen grab mode
• Select the region of the Desmos window that you want to use as your graphic (this pastes it directly onto the Mac OS X clipboard)
• Paste into a blank Omni Graffle document (from omnigroup.com )
• Resize to fit your needs, then
• Select, copy, and paste as many times as you need to create the master for your tiny handout

I arrange them 3-UP on the photocopy master so the tiny handout will fit onto a standards notebook/INB page.

Here are the files for my photocopy masters:

• Parabola geometric def example VERTICAL AXIS.pdf
• Parabola geometric def example HORIZONTAL AXIS.pdf

Chop, glue, annotate.

I recognize this is totally old school, but everything old is new again.