i wondered recently, and ages ago, about the unrealised potential of tinkering with software to learn maths etc, from the "inside"; more of a modelling approach using iteration etc. So here's an example of that ... taking the popular internet game LineRider -which is full of neat, but hidden, school level maths - and adding a cartesian grapher in the left corner to make some of the maths a little more visible to the kids who can't see where y=mx+c kicks in
(click the pic to launch it, then click the little icon on the left hand edge)
[if you want to download the swf, you'll need this file as well]
so ... my point is really, not that we can make demo's like this, though its fun... but that we could, in principle, teach whole courses like this ... a hybrid of maths with computers ... or even this sort of interactive art, -ie not just apps that demo "key concepts" ... but maths thinking and "IT thinking" -(programming etc) supporting each other ... thats the boundary i think we still haven't crossed in school yet; reconceptualising how maths and ict could relate.
Nothing much novel here - Papert and Kay were suggesting it 30 years ago; just don't think we've gone there in any significant way -programming feels a bit out of favour, for various reaons - and so i think we are missing a key aspect of what software really is; limiting kids to being software "users" - not experimenting with the most flexible and expressive symbolism devised ... (i'm certainly no expert at this - just feel that in order to take control in creative ways kids need to be exposed to the art and discipline of programming; its what this ICT stuff is made of after all; they need to be literate here, or least get a chance to be - empowered so "behind the scenes" isn't out of reach - and this world of functions and variables could also be very useful for exploring maths in particular; could also mix into art, word games, media stories etc)
(here's a compelling story on how we got to where we are .. where the software experience is reduced to "using applications" - i'm just finding out there was a huge educational vision around the initial explosion of IT ... not just logo ... which had the idea of kids making and exploring their own tools - which has largely gone by the wayside)
Hi
Well done, more than well done! Your sim and your vision is commendable. I have looked at similar stuff at http://schoolgamemaker.rupert.id.au/samples3/
Carpe Diem, the time has come for the vision of Papert to be realised with the technology that is now available.
What do you think about using syntax free iconic languages such as Scratch, Etoys and GameMaker so that the maths and physics in the sim is more accessable tothe students.
What about the criticism of text based languages ““attention is typically so riveted to simply getting a program to work that any appreciation for more general cognitive strategies is lost.”.
ON THE COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF LEARNING
COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
ROY D. PEA and D. MIDIAN KURLAND
Center for Children and Technology Bank Street College of Education 610 West
112th Street, New York, NY 10025, U.S.A.
http://scil.stanford.edu/about/staff/bios/PDF/Cog_Effects_Prog
Comment by Tony Forster — March 4, 2008 @ 9:30 am
Hi Tony
i know you’re the GameMaker proponent, and have done some very cool mathematical things with it - i imagine some of it needed you to go into the scripting side rather than iconic stuff?
re the language obscuring maths, i think its only a problem while ICT is considered an add on; while we accept that someone else has written the code and we just demo the application
i think that could change - the formality of programming is closer to maths than any other discipline, and maths, of all disciplines, has most to gain by incorporating it
there are 10 good reasons why any indvidual doesn’t have the time, but i can’t see a good reason why maths teachers, as a group, can’t tap into the world of functions and variables that is programming - eg for a start, write something on the graphics calc (not that i think thats the best platform by a Bendigo mile).
(might need to add something to the canon of school level maths?).
Papert and Kay have been persuasively pushing this for a long time - enough for a generation to look at it
Peter Sullivan, prof of maths education - said recently - “collectively we have not utilised technology well at all, and hardly at all to make the subject matter come alive.” (see here for Peter’s comment on the prelim approach - also for my reservations about doing this
Comment by rob — March 7, 2008 @ 8:08 pm