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Ever since I was
in grade school I was pretty good math and so it was something that came
came easy to me and and I and so I was wanting to know how
how do we apply math in
the real world for the daily things that we might do
and a particular for me I was always in to games
so always wanted to look at under the hood how games were made
I and so I use to I remember as a kid
is to be at magazine a computer magazine called byte magazine
I think it's still out now but they would have complete works of code
laid out and I didn't know anything I can understand although
all the code but all I knew was at the end if I were to copy this code
I would get the final product at the game that I could play
so that really was a motivation for me without really knowing any of the math but
I knew they were numbers are all kinds symbols in the air
and I would sit hours and hours and copying you know these pages of code
from this magazine
into the into this you know basic programs and then at the end of it I
would have a game that I could play
so that was really cool concept so and eventually
I learned about the mathematics and also I understood by just
copying
you know in the beginning so I ever since I was a kid it was something that
I've always been intrigued by
terms you know how math is linked to up especially computers and gaming
pretty early on I will always had this instinct I couldn't pinpoint approve it
but there's always been and just not just me even there's been a lot of
talk in our field terms of what their
kids playing and spending tons of hours on
games I and and we know that there's a lot of interesting problem solving and
real logical thinking that goes on just simply
from playing games and I've been disappointed in a lot of the product that's come out a lot of
it has been selected real in practice kind of work that's gone on to
it's basically putting sugar-coating around you know a hard battle whatever
their school math
but not really integrating to you know well
so for me that's been uh what we know that students are
really engaged expand hours and hours apart trying to make it to the next
level with these games
and learning while at it but we have not been as educators sort of an
integral part of that process in terms of from the very beginning in designing
solid sound games that really help kids learn
the past few years in our field of education there's been a lot of money
not just coming from schools but for industry
your Microsoft aP's really trying to and Gates Foundation all these big
organizations
trying to develop educational software has been you know
this there's been a big push for it right but still that was taught really
have any
really good example that we can see his great educational games
that we can bring it to the classroom so for me
my focus is not really getting kids to play games I know they're great at that
so my focus is in getting kids to make games
so the learning that comes behind
that's that's been so that's been the push and and a lot of researchers and
now I'm moving in that direction so
so we started on that tons of research around playing games
so now we're moving in the direction of what what does it look like when kids
create
and make so moving them from from producers from
from consumers to producers of technology we recently
for the last four years I've been working
on a proposal to the National Science Foundation
to basically create a curriculum a game based curriculum
that's culturally relevant so the idea is we want
to provide schools with some curriculum guidance
on how to get kids to make games that are meaningful to them
so and and at the same time our educational
okay and so what that means is that we start with what kids are interested in
you know in their own worlds in their culture and so we build from that
and help them to sort of move to the next level up okay so you're interested
in these topics this is
so let's what can you design around that in a creative space
to make something that not only is interesting to you but your own
community
and the additional pieces oh by the way it's gotta be fun it's gotta be a game
but they're good at that they're living in the game world to me know this
stuff and so
so that part if it is not difficult the difficult part for them
is finding issues that
they find meaningful to them in their own communities sorta bridging that in
making something about that
around that piece so the first one
we developed was a top a game called
circuit math, so circuit math is
not necessarily culturally relevant but its a
it's a math puzzle type of an app
and we've got basically six levels pretty much complete
and another six levels that we're working on in addition and subtraction
so the math is very simple but once you get into it it's a puzzle
as you know puzzles are not easy so the the amount of math that's required is not
high level math so we're talking maybe
for second grade third grade tops in terms of the math that's required
however the type of logical thinking that's involved in
solving the puzzle side of it
runs the gap into adults so once you get into it could be a little
addictive because
you want to solve the puzzle obviously but there's a math component imbedded.
There have been several teachers that have downloaded
this app for the iPads that they have in their
classrooms and so basically
in a math classroom you know you might pull out your apps to sort of
help learn either the math topic or the logical thinking that you want
kids to learn
so the app is tied to
the Common Core Standards. And the other app that
I'm really interested in and I've been working on
and will be released soon is an app called Tops.
So Tops is an app that I've been wanting to make for a long time because it's an app that
is based on a street game that I used to play called... it has several names but
street names called Skelly, Gully, Tops... just got a couple different names
that are out there yet and so...
it's not hopscotch but the idea of making the game board using chalk
on the street so you have to make the game board first
and then as a player you make
you take that bottle top and you fill it in and as kids we used to
fill it in with wax
or black tar so boys generally would take the black tar melted in
and
give it some weight because the more weight you have on you can
sort of knock other people off the board.
Girls would take crayons and be very colorful you know these different colors,
make rainbows, and all kinds, and melt it in there
so and so it would be a game that needs to be both boys and girls so it's you
know played a big if we play nice
in the middle of the street you know it's a large board
and the object is for you to get your top
to the number thirteen so you moved to the board one each box as a numbered from 1
to 13
so I took that concept and wanted to make a digital based version
of that however also making it educational so it's, it is a math
app also catered to
elementary school students. It's gonna be out
hopefully within the next
two or three weeks so we'll have a decent version that people can
play around with.
When kids are making apps it's amazing because it's to me a comfort zone
for them, I mean obviously they don't know about the programming,
the coding
that's involved but the great thing about it is that there are tools
available now that
kids can make apps without really knowing a lot of code so
but what you're seeing in them is a sense of ownership they are ready
and they know what they want so it's a matter of sort of helping
them to
get there you know in terms of taking their ideas like we were talking
about earlier
and helping them craft their ideas from their interests
and making something that's meaningful so they know that "Wow
I'm gonna have something that other people are gonna use and they're gonna play and
I can do this as a middle school student" and not only is it
learning about math but it's also
logical thinking, computational thinking so when you go through the process
of you know forget about storytelling to put all that stuff aside it's also
in graphic design
that's imbedded in this whole process but in terms of the mathematics that it
involves... so for example
on any game screen for you to make an
object move that's... you're talking about your honor XY coordinates, talking about basic
geometry, you
understand that you want to make your your object move from
X and Y coordinate here and move to another
X and Y coordinate like one on screen so students have to understand the basics of coordinate
geometry
to be able to do that and to make the computer in the program in the objects
on the screen
do what they wanted to do you know so so we saw me so we talk about basic things
that we get into
physics concepts as well in terms of ball bouncing on the
screen
I mean that's all... there's tons of physics: density, friction,
velocity, and everything in games has
to do with science but also how
math is applied to that science so and
you know they're learning that and they don't have a problem with that
because they have an end goal in mind so
before they even get into that right so because the design process is
very visual
so they know I want this ball or this character to move from here to there so
oh how do I do that and so now they're motivated to learn some
of the math that's behind
you know this programming to be able to make the game function.
