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fundamental part of daily mathematics instruction in Virginia ’ s classrooms. These developments indi cate the importance and permanence of Desmos in the future of the mathematics education communi ty. As such, the research community needs to en gage in further investigation of its use as a peda gogical tool in classrooms and the impacts it is having on student experiences and outcomes in mathematics. As with any technology, there are benefits and limitations to the ways in which inno vations are accessed and used. Especially true in the institutionalized context of schooling, care needs to be taken in adopting any educational tech nology to ensure that learning goals are being sup ported by its use, both by the teachers and the stu dents. However, since Desmos ’ s epoch is continu ing to emerge, the research community has yet to engage with it as a critical focus of analysis, as evi denced by the relative lack of literature available. In 2018, Virginia decided to adopt Desmos as the official calculators for the Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments. The memo announced that, beginning with the 2019 - 2020 school year, Desmos calculators would be the required calculator for stu dent use during the SOL tests (Virginia Department of Education, 2018). The memo also clarified that different types of calculators would be available inside the TestNav test proctoring software for dif ferent grade levels and SOL tests, such as four function, scientific, and graphing. Additionally, the memo specified that the use of Desmos calculators would be implemented starting in Grade 4 Math and would continue for all SOLs through the Alge bra II end - of - course assessment. The next year, VDOE pushed this timeline back one year to begin in the 2020 - 2021 school year “ based on feedback received from school divisions ” (Virginia Depart ment of Education, 2019, p. 1). It is unclear for the delay based on the feedback, but many school dis tricts proceeded to implement Desmos into their classes based on the original timeline. At the time of this writing, the literature on Desmos is sparse, mainly consisting of practitioner articles on activities and K - 12 classroom lessons (e.g., Bourassa, 2014; Iobst, 2018; King, 2017). One arti cle used Desmos to teach limits in calculus, which is the only instance I found using Desmos in a higher - level mathematics course than specified by VDOE (see Liang, 2016). In Virginia, I have wit nessed Desmos used as both a testing accessory and an instructional tool. However, the literature is lacking about the relationship between Desmos ’ s institutionalization and its impacts on students ’ ex periences in the mathematics classroom.

The Institutionalization and Situated Implementation of DESMOS Alexander S. Moore Perhaps one of the most transformative innovations to emerge in educational technology in recent years is the software program Desmos (https:// www.desmos.com). Originally beginning as an ed ucational startup technology company, Desmos slowly gained venture capital and continued to ex pand until GV (formerly Google Ventures) joined as an investing partner in 2012 (Desmos, 2012). Google ’ s financial backing was a turning point that has galvanized Desmos in the educational technol ogy landscape since. A modern - day iteration of the classic graphic calculator, Desmos brings the now old - fashioned TI - 83s of yesterday into a modern interpretation with incredible power, functionality, and—most importantly from an institutional stand point—easy and customizable scalability. The ap peal of Desmos begins with its modern and intui tive user interface which mimics many other well developed tools like it. It is designed to be used on a web browser either on a computer or a touchscreen (a phone or tablet), and its logical in terface is easy to learn for everyone, students and professionals, of all ages. The universality of its design has also led to its adoption by school dis tricts as a de facto tool which has quickly replaced graphing calculators in many districts. For schools which already have a one - to - one laptop program providing each student with a laptop computer, Desmos eliminates the need to purchase graphing calculators. In addition to cost savings on equip ment purchases (Desmos, 2012), students have the responsibility of maintaining less equipment in terms of condition and care, and teachers have to rely less on students remembering to bring both their laptop and graphing calculator to class. Combined with the appeals of the easy user inter face and inherent power of its capabilities, the low er equipment burdens have shifted school districts ’ adoption from graphing calculators to Desmos on a breadth of scale that has now resulted in custom implementations of the Desmos software and insti tutionalized regulations at the state level. Many states have established partnerships with Desmos to bring their technology to the state ’ s standardized achievement tests (Desmos, n.d.). Virginia is one such state. Desmos has become an institutionalized part of the state Standards of Learning standardized achievement tests, and as a result, Desmos is now a

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 46, no. 2

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