We are a 1:1 ipad school and I try to incorporate the iPad into class whenever it works. I have used Desmos for graphing and to make a Christmas graphing project (see post here: Using Desmos to Graph). But, I just recently noticed a new feature [new to me at least!] on the teacher side of Desmos. You can make your own Card Sort! I am currently teaching the Ambiguous Case in PreCalculus. Ugh....seriously complicated and sometimes difficult for students to understand. Plus...I was getting observed during this lesson :) I first learned about the idea of a desmos card sort from mathcathy (see her post here: Mathy Cathy Blog Post about Card Sorts) The basic idea is that you give students a set of "cards" (the electronic kind!) and you have the students sort the cards into groups. Since I am just learning to make card sorts, I kept mine short and to the point. I put in cute cards that had 0, 1, and 2 graphics on them. Then I created 6 cards with descriptions of triangles on them. Students had to decide, based on the given information, if 0, 1, or 2 triangles could be formed. Students signed in and began to work. I watched how they were doing on my teacher screen! Some students were able to be successful fairly quickly, but others had to work at it for awhile. No problem - I could easily tell when they had it because all of their cards on my screen lit up green. If I had to do this activity again, I would try to make use of one of the features that mathycathy suggested. I would project the "anonymous" version of the activity up on the screen so the students could see that other people in the room ARE getting it. In short, I definitely want to make more card sorts! My students enjoyed it and so did I :)
