Tip for getting nice function graphs onto your Smart Board

Desmos graph pasted into Smart Notebook. No way my handwriting is that neat!

If you use a smart board and you graph/discuss functions as much as I do, I think you’ll love this tip. Even some of the veteran teachers in my dept. loved this and didn’t know how easy it was.

In Calculus and Algebra 2 we are often drawing graphs and talking about such things as end behavior, transformations, wiggles in the middle of a cubic, etc. and prior to this we used the graphing calculators.  But I couldn’t draw, add comments, etc. on the smart board TI calculator emulator.  So here is what I do on my PC (it takes only a minute or so and I do this from my desk – not standing at the Smart board) and it works great.

1. In your browser I go to desmos.com and type in 2 functions (it’s the easiest graphing web site to use).  Zoom with mouse wheel to see the scale you want.
2. Press the “Print screen” button on your keyboard (it’s right next to F12)
3. Open PAINT (it’s the free one with Windows – but you can use any image software).  Be sure to pin it to your taskbar so it’s one click away.
4. Press CTRL V to paste  in the graphs (or just click PASTE on the left side).
5. Use the rectangular selection tool to select just the part of the graph you want.
   

   Controls to use in PAINT

6. Click Copy.
7. Alt-Tab back to Smart Notebook (or just select it from the task bar at the bottom).
8. Press CTRL V to paste (or use the edit menu in Smart Notebook).

Then just go to town and discuss/markup/add notes to the graph.  It’s much faster than it seems above and you get good at it really fast.  There are other apps that let you snip part of the screen as well as feature in Smart Notebook, I just prefer this method.  Please share other ideas in the comments – I’d love to hear from you!

An alternative method.

Very specific to SMART Notebook, which we use in my school, but much more convenient is to click the PRINT icon while viewing a PDF.  In the printer selection drop-down there is an option called “SMART Notebook document writer”.  Click it and each page from your PDF file will be copied to a page in SMART Notebook.  Thanks to Steffany S. for pointing this out to me!