Geometry Technologies

Before spring break, our class explored the graphing applications of Geometer’s Sketchpad, Desmos, and Geogebra.  Of the three, I would say Geogebra was the easiest to work with since it had step by step instructions on how to use the functionalities of the program.  GSP (Geometer’s Sketchpad) allowed the user to construct any sort of polygon or angle with an eay to use sidebar with all its available tools.  You could even import your own tools from online.  Our class used a tool that created regular polygons with a click of a button.  By not having to worry about repeatedly creating individual polygons, it allowed us to focus on creating tessellations and what made certain polygons tesselate and others not.  Desmos was my least favorite program to work with for its graphing applications because it relied on visual examples and did little to actually explain how to work the program.  I would definitely recommend GSP, however it is being discontinued in the near future, so I would recommend Geogebra over Desmos.  One thing I remember learning from the chapter 11 exercises we did was how to construct geometric nets to match a cube.  At first, I found it difficult to imaging the squares folding to create a cube, but the GSP activity helped with practicing that way of viewing a cube.  I would definitely use these activities with a geometry class.  The lessons that could apply these technologies include demonstrating the conservation of congruence in translated shapes, why the Pythagorean theorem works by showing the sides actually become squares, and proving the side and angle theorems.