Comments on: lineRider meets year 8 maths http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughts/index.php/2008/03/04/linerider-meets-year-8-maths/ schools, change, tech, values, learning Mon, 12 May 2008 14:52:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.2 By: Tony Forster http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughts/index.php/2008/03/04/linerider-meets-year-8-maths/#comment-2866 Tony Forster Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:30:16 +0000 http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughts/index.php/2008/03/04/linerider-meets-year-8-maths/#comment-2866 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 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

]]> By: rob http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughts/index.php/2008/03/04/linerider-meets-year-8-maths/#comment-2936 rob Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:08:43 +0000 http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughts/index.php/2008/03/04/linerider-meets-year-8-maths/#comment-2936 Hi Tony i know you're the GameMaker proponent, and have done some <a href="http://schoolgamemaker.rupert.id.au/samples3/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> very cool mathematical </a> 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 <a href=http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughts/index.php/2008/02/27/ict-honour-the-flipside/#comments rel="nofollow">here <a/> for Peter's comment on the prelim approach - also for my reservations about doing this 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

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