Education Through Gaming: Math and Science Roundup

To wrap up my mini-series on educational video gaming, allow me to share the other online resources that we have particularly enjoyed over the last year or two. Given our tech limitations (we own only laptops – no Ipads or Itouches or anything like that), we generally stick to the resources we can easily access on the web.

As I was writing this post, I realized there is perhaps a discussion to be had as to what constitutes a video game. Is it simply a self-contained app that you play exclusively on a tech device? Or do you take into account resources that provide challenges to accomplish away from the computer or Ipad, rewarding players only upon completion of the task? For this post, I choose the second and broader view.

CellCraft

I’ve spoken about this game before. CellCraft is a game we discovered only this year, and thoroughly enjoyed its fun combination of learning with super fun video-gaming challenges and silly fantasy. Here’s my take, from my previous post:

The other completely addictive activity we dived into is a video game called CellCraft. Holy cow, folks – this was ridiculously fun. Though the creators definitely took some artistic license (you find the organelles you need, and at one point our animal cell is given plant cell chloroplasts to generate more energy), the science behind most of the game is pretty accurate. The player must run the cell, making sure all organelles are doing what they need to do, and are getting the resources they need to thrive.

Viruses periodically attack the cell, which you must biologically defend, and there is an overarching fantasy narrative: an alien platypus race on a threatened planet is sending this cell across the expanse of space to land on a new planet (Earth) where it can grow into new platypusses. Platypi? Whatever. It’s cute and fun. Eva and I played it together for days, and I loved hearing her yell out “we need more lysosomes!!” and the like. It’s free for download, so check it out. Ian played it a little too, but he hasn’t covered cell biology yet. After watching both experiences, I recommend using it after the student has already studied the structure and function of a cell. It’s better as a reinforcement activity than a straight-ahead teaching tool.

Interestingly, now that the semester is over, I’ve been able to compare having a kid use it in tandem with biology study and not. Eva played the whole game through, and even now, months later, she has a firm grasp on the variety and function of a cell’s organelles. Ian, who only dabbled in the game one afternoon, still has to really think to recall the same information. Eva engaged with the material more deeply than her brother because of CellCraft; the game took us many hours to play, and oftentimes she and I had to work together to make sure the cell got what it needed during its more dire moments. It was exciting and fun, and now that information is hers. Ian on the other hand learned the information more traditionally – through lectures and texts – and never became emotionally invested, so the information failed to resonate. I mean, he gets it. He just doesn’t own it.

Alcumus

Alcumus falls under my broader video game definition. This “game” is honestly more of a cool math problem generator that rewards success with XP and challenge badges (pre-algebra and up). Think along the lines of a Khan Academy setup. For a while, Ian loved Alcumus. This was a couple of years ago when he was stagnating in math. I could give him a set of problems on a sheet of paper, and he would absolutely hate it. But when the same problems were presented to him with Alcumus’ digital rewards, math became something to look forward to. Seriously – he went from struggling through this topic for 40 minutes a day to working without interruption for up to 4 hours at a time! This excitement did eventually wear off for him, and Alcumus has never had the same pull for Eva that it did for her brother, but still. It’s free, has quality problems with funny educational instructional videos to help you out if you need it, and it just may be the thing your kid needs to get through a difficult hump in math. To be honest, I think the instructional videos – though still limited in scope – are more engaging than the ones Khan Academy produces. Not to diss Khan. I love me some Khan. But hopefully by now, you’re well-educated about that fabulous resource.

DIY

This is our newest discovery, and hoo-boy, are we instant fans. Their mission is to help kids become makers. Makers of anything – music, art, clubs, science gizmos, computer gizmos… they challenge you to cook, work on open source sites, create forts, make magic, build an engine, study wildlife, and yes you Minecraft-addicts: they even have Minecraft-related challenges. Here’s the very simple way it works: choose a challenge (or create your own), follow the instructions (or make your own), complete the challenge, photograph or film it, and upload it to your free account on the site. The staff reviews and approves your work, and you get an awesomesauce badge (think Girl Scouts) once you’ve completed three tasks in a single topic. If they like your work, they’ll highlight it on their website, making you feel super-cool. Eva and I have decided that science for all of next year will simply be making stuff, using this amazing resource.

Hmm. So now you may be asking: what no Angry Birds? Well, actually, no. I’m a reluctant gamer, I suppose, and my preference for the most part is topic-specific resources like CellCraft and Alcumus, and those like DIY that encourage real-life interaction. At the end of the day, I hope to have spent much more time away from screens than in front of them.

But before you techies judge me as a stone-ager, allow me to share this video that came across my feed this week: a message about the importance of moving beyond simply playing games to learning the code that comprises them. (And, you guessed it -  there’s a link at the end to a site where you can learn how to code with a bit of gaming help!) No matter how we feel about them, video games and technology and the code that makes them do what they do are an important part of our existence today. Code is our language now. And we’d best not get left behind.

Education Through Gaming: Descartes Cove

Not often do my blog posts garner the attention that my most recent “Minecraft in the Classroom” did last week. Man, you people are seriously seeking video game justification! It reminded me again how much we as a community – parents, teachers, students – are looking for ways to improve our learning experience by taking advantage of all the new and exciting technology at our fingertips. And perhaps you, like I, want to make sure that we keep these tools in balance, choosing only the highest quality resources, and stowing our laptops next to our paints and brushes, binoculars and bird books.

Though the kids’ Minecraft history timelines are coming along nicely, it will be a while until I can share their work with you. Minecraft is not the only educational video game we use, however. This week, I’ll share a couple of other little gems we’ve fallen in love with. Consider if you will….

• Subject: Math
• Intended audience: grades 6-8
• Fun level: 8/10
• Challenge Level: Excellent, though we haven’t played all the modules yet
• Cheating Potential: High, but easily resolved by strategically assigning partners or providing personal oversight
• Physical Interaction Potential: Medium. Problems are provided on the game, and players solve them using paper, a white board, etc., before selecting the answer.
• Price: $155, with shipping. Special rates for schools.

After hearing rave reviews of this Myst-type math game developed in 2006 by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, I ordered it for our public library’s children’s collection. Here’s the description, taken from the website:

“Marooned on a desert island once inhabited by Rene Descartes, students discover his notebook and gear and begin their journey through the island’s tunnels, volcanoes, abandoned mines, and sunken ship.  At each step, they solve increasingly difficult puzzles and math challenges that follow NCTM standards. As they master each math concept, they prepare to tackle the final quest to build a means to escape from the island.”

Upon arrival last summer, I immediately checked the game out, eager to try it on my kids and share my recommendations with other patrons. It’s intended for grades 6-8, and we quickly discovered that it was too easy for rising 9th grader Ian and too difficult for rising 6th grader Eva. However, the beautiful graphics are true to the game’s promises of Myst-style quality and appearance. The kiddos were so disappointed that it was just out of their reach.

I returned the game, and Eva and I carried on with our 6th grade math studies, moving into beginning algebra and geometry over the winter. On a whim, I checked the game out again last week, and this time, Eva was ready. You can choose six different math quests, selecting from measurement, number and operations, data analysis and probability, algebra, geometry, and reasoning and proof. Eva chose data analysis and probability. The player is equipped with a backpack for the journey that holds a notebook of handy explanations of the basic concepts you’re studying. The game’s concept is really very simple: solve 10 problems and move on through the locked door just ahead. In solving the problems, you also earn pieces of something you need to build to move on to the next grand level. Use the notebook in your backpack if you need a little help.

Ultimately, I suppose you could cheat your way through the game: the problems are set up as multiple choice. If you get the wrong answer, you can just keep trying other selections until you get the right one. There doesn’t seem to be any penalty for this. It’s all a matter of approach, however. Although I don’t watch everything that Eva does, I sit nearby to help with problems she’s stuck on. She sits by our huge white board, and I can see her working out the problems before she punches in the answer. Sometimes she does get them wrong completely, but she talks to me about it, and then explains why the solution is what it is. I have her work on it approximately a half hour a day, and she loves it so much better than worksheets and textbooks, she’s happy to do it. She knows that talking with me about the problems is part of the deal, so I am assured that real learning is happening.

All in all, I give this game an A+. Still need convincing? Watch this demo. Have fun!

Mexi-Hexi-Flexigons!!!

Eva looooves Vi Hart, the charming, quirky, and brilliant mathematician who is best known for her verbally quick videos about math and doodling. This week, once again, Eva’s been studying her video on mexi-hexi-flexigons. Take a peek:

Ok. Now you know why we adore Vi. Today, Eva decided was The Day to make these delicious treats, so off we went to the grocery store to buy 12 inch tortillas for the task. We bought a package of 6.

Eva is working with the tortilla strip

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First step is to cut a strip from the center of the tortilla. Proportion is key. Too thin and it won’t hold any food, too thick, and you won’t be able to make enough triangles to complete the shape. Also, fresh tortillas are essential!! Most tortillas will break if you bend them around too much. Even with the package we just opened, we still had some tearing problems. Tortillas #1 – #4 met terrible fates, either from being too small or too big, or tearing when the flexing moment arrived.

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Oh my. We only had two tortillas left! This time, Eva paid close attention to the strip width, and we decided not to do any pre-eating flexing. This one was going to count.

Testing out the triangle strip

Building the triangle stack

This one’s going to work, we just know!

Pulling together the ingredients….

Drum Roll Please! …

 

Om nom nom.

Media Math Magic

Welcome to my third and final post of Math Madness Week. Today I will share the best of the best in math media, including online instruction and play-at-home videos. So grab your popcorn and fuzzy slippers (at least I will; it’s -25 with the wind chill here currently), and let’s just jump in, shall we?

First up:

Vi Hart. Because she’s so extremely fun and makes math look like the most Super Cool Thing one could ever take part in. The only way to adequately explain the magic that is Vi Hart is to simply let you experience her. So here she is:

Didn’t you just love it?? She has a youtube channel that you can visit or subscribe to. Or you can visit her on her website. Most recently, she’s teamed up with the Khan Academy, and this makes me very excited! Why? Because next up is….

The Khan Academy. Pop that into a google search engine, and you’ll quickly find that Salman Khan and his free online academy has been garnering quite a bit of national attention over the last year or so. We discovered him three years back, just before the big explosion (so we can say we knew him when). Khan offers 10ish minute lectures on various topics, talking over an interactive black screen where he draws out educational illustrations. He has produced more than 2,700 of these videos.

Though he talks on many different subjects, he has an interactive exercise component for his K-12 math lessons. The kids listen to a lecture, solve problems, and earn those sparkly badges I spoke of earlier this week. Moon badges, earth badges, meteorite badges, energy points. It’s pretty fabulous. The lessons start with 1+1 and move up through calculus, statistics, etc. One of the nice aspects of this program is that kids can choose from a variety of appropriately leveled maths. Sick of decimals? Then open up the charts and graphs exercise.

Here’s a sample lecture video:

Since Sal currently gives all of the lectures himself, you feel like you’re really getting to know him. It makes online learning feel more personal. Like Vi, Khan has his own youtube channel. But to take full advantage of the academy, create a free account on the Khan Academy website.

Oh, and here’s a screenshot of the star chart where you earn your sparkly badges:

Screenshot from Khan Academy - the progress star chart

Alcumus. This is another wonderful sparkly-badge option offered by The Art of Problem Solving (AoPS). Alcumus currently starts with pre-algebra and moves up from there, so this isn’t for the younger kids (I’ll get back to them in a minute). One of the nice things Alcumus offers is a thorough explanation of how to work each problem after you solve it. They provide this explanation whether or not you got the answer correct; this allows the student to see a variety of ways to reach the answer.

Alcumus links up with AoPS’s hefty textbooks instead of online lectures (although they do have a quite few of those too, hosted by the charming and witty Richard Rusczyk). If you’re stuck on a concept, you simply cross-reference the book for a complete explanation. Though the online program is free, the books are not. But really, we’ve done a lot of these problems without the backup textbooks. We are currently using their Algebra I text as our main math curriculum, but we enjoy Alcumus problems from their counting and probability topics too.

Like Khan, the problems get harder or easier depending on your progress. And there are special quests and sparkly badges.

Here’s a sample lecture:

And here’s a screen shot of the sparkly badge earning center.

Ian's Sparkly Badges on Alcumus

It’s important to note that the Alcumus problems and sparkly badges are not linked up to the videos – those are on a separate tab, and of course on their own youtube channel. He also does short videos called “MATHCOUNTS Minis” that are fun self-contained challenges. Be sure to check out their webpage.

DreamBox. And now for the K-3 crowd. I used this program with Eva last year, and she loooooooved it. She loved it so much that she still asks every month whether DreamBox has expanded their program to include grades higher than 3. In my research for this blog entry, I have joyfully discovered that in fact they will be expanding next month to include 4th and 5th grades.

DreamBox is very cute, offering peppy cartoon graphics that are admittedly geared to appeal to established gender stereotypes (you get four theme choices: pixies, pets, pirates, or dinosaurs). Still, Eva enjoyed playing all four areas, and to work your way through the curriculum, at some point you’ll have to play them all. When she worked with DreamBox, she begged for math class. And I was amazed to see how solid her understanding was of the concepts. It’s $60 for one child for 6 months, there are discounts for more children, and of course there are different rates for full classrooms. For us, it’s well worth the price.

Here’s a little video sample of a 2nd grade lesson in the pixie theme:

You can get a free 14 day trial, and play free demos on their website.

I’ll wrap up by offering a few more quick links to videos we’ve enjoyed using.

The Great Courses. College level DVD lectures given by some of the best university professors of our time. Pretty expensive, but I hit up library booksales to find them, and their website slowly rotates their complete collection through crazy good sales. You just have to be a bit patient and keep checking back. In math, we’ve particularly enjoyed the Joy of Mathematics by Arthur Benjamin.

The Story of Math. DVD set that Ian and I checked out from our public library and watched over a couple of weeks, munching mid-morning bagels and apple cider. What we learned: all of the great mathematicians were crazy, and you can’t study history or science without talking about the history of math. Loved the host and the real human stories. Plus the scenery was beautiful.

Bill Nye’s Solving for X. There seem to be only two of these DVDs so far, and I hope he produces more. Nothing deep here, just Bill Nye’s fun, manic way of getting kids to laugh about learning. He has one on pre-algebra, and one on algebra. Not worth purchasing necessarily, but see if your library has it.

Living Math Book List. And finally, I meant to include this on my last post about math books, but I forgot. You can use this blog to find math fiction titles by the concept you want to reinforce. It’s a great tool.

Bringing Math to Life With Fun(ky) Books

In my last post, I mentioned how in Ian’s first year of homeschooling we chose not to follow a traditional math curriculum, and instead just noodled around finding fun math stuff to explore. Today I’ll talk about some of the books we discovered; in my next post, I’ll share some media resources.

Ian with Arthur Benjamin in 2009

We started with the Great Mathemagician, Arthur Benjamin, whom we had seen perform the previous summer. A professor at Harvey Mudd College, Benjamin also tours the nation giving delightful performances that showcase his incredible ability in mental math. He starts small, squaring two-digit numbers, and eventually works his way up to squaring a five digit number, all in his head. He also has a mental method of figuring what day of the week any calendar date falls on, whether it’s in the past or future. He has a great time telling folks in the audience what day of the week their birth date was. It’s super fun, and you should check out his show, which I’ve conveniently embedded below.

Ian of course thought this was Epic, so we picked up his book Secrets of Mental Math, and for the first six months of homeschool, slowly worked our way through it. We held math class at the scenic university student lounge, overlooking miles of gentle hills and a spectacular, windy river. He was nine years old then. We read the lessons together, and I gave him problems to solve in his head. He paced all over that lounge, muttering and holding out his fingers. But nobody was there to witness it – at 8 am, most university students were either in bed or in class. Oh, and by the way, I always brought some hot apple cider and some little delectable munchie, and we would take breaks at the lounge ping-pong table. Really, those math classes were such a blast.

Over the months, we worked pretty far into the book. We never could master the biggest problems – even though Benjamin shares his secrets, he’s still quite simply a mathematical genius, and it takes a bit of time and talent to achieve what he has – but Ian picked up some fantastic mental math skills that will help him throughout his life. And it was FUN!

A genre of books I love to dig through is math fiction. There really are more great titles out there than most people realize, and they provide a great way to introduce or reinforce mathematical concepts in a friendly, entertaining format. Ian enjoyed The Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger – it’s a nice mix of good story, and colorful, fun illustrations. He also liked the Do the Math Series by Wendy Lichtman.

And then there are the Murderous Maths books, which Ian simply loves. They’re affordable paperbacks produced in the UK, but you can get them from my friend Ray at his website (tell him Gwyn sent you!). The Murderous Maths books explore math concepts with a wonderful British sense of humor; they’re made by the same folks who put out the Horrible History series (another must-have). We picked up the box set a couple of years back, and Ian goes back to them again and again.

I’m terribly excited to order the forthcoming Manga Guide to Linear Algebra, to be released in March of this year. The Manga Guide series is great, and I’m glad they’re releasing new titles. The books are mainly told in the manga style, neatly combining story with educational concepts. There are also sections of non-illustrated text to further explain the more difficult topics.

But perhaps your little math student is, well, a bit more little. No worries! The fun non-boring math genre is dominated by cute picture books geared toward the K-6 crowd. Let’s continue with our Manga theme by checking out Simon Basher’s Math: A Book You Can Count On. It features a simple layout of math concepts that will appeal to fans of trading card games and comic books. And there’s a cool tear-out poster in the back. We own tons of the Basher books, and their included posters are scattered all over the classroom. Chemistry, biology, rocks and minerals, space… they’ve got it covered.

I’m going to be honest here: the best way to find fun math selections (especially for your younger student) is to go to your public library and ask for them. At the branch where I work, we tend to put the math fiction in with the math non-fiction, particularly when the fiction is written specifically to demonstrate a particular concept. Sit. Spread out. Peruse. And don’t forget to do catalog searches. Ask your friendly librarian for help. Personally, I love those kinds of requests and will load an innocent patron down with more books than they can carry. I’ll include a few quick titles and series here, but honestly, there are simply too many to list.

Tang has a fun picture book series that teaches simple concepts. Why Pi? is a fabulous title by DK Publishing. Go Figure: The Book of Numbers by Johnny Ball (also published by DK) is equally fun. Lots of kids (though not necessarily mine) also enjoy the Sir Cumference series by Cindy Neuschwander.

And then there are the picture books about specific awesome mathematicians! Must reads include What’s Your Angle, Pythagorus? by Julie Ellis (she apparently has a follow-up title released in 2010) and Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D’Agnese.

Now for the activity books and kits. Eva and I enjoyed the Hooked on Math kits that covered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.They’re pretty expensive, so again, ask your library if they carry them, and if they don’t, make a formal request. That’s how we used them.

The cool base-ten blocks I checked out from the school district's media library.

As a general library patron, I have access not only to my local branch, but to materials located in libraries throughout our system, including our local university. And if I can’t what I need there, for a small fee I can request from any library across the nation. As a home educator, I can also check out materials through the public school district’s media library. Using all of these resources, I can get my hands on all sorts of expensive kits and equipment. I like using hands-on materials, but my budget is small. And, who really needs to own a full set of base-10 blocks? I found kits available on almost every math topic. The kids love opening up the treasures and playing the games inside.

I will add two final resources (is your head swimming yet?). The Critical Thinking Company produces lots of great puzzles that challenge kids in reading, math, and logic comprehension. Often we’ll solve these over lunch, on a white board of course. And if you still need more, check out EAI Education. They have catalogs packed with more math toys than you could possibly ever use (and frankly I will say for both of these companies, request a catalog – they’re much easier on the eyes than their websites). Have fun!

MathQuest!: Building Fairies and Warriors with Math Points

During our first year of homeschool, I spent a lot of time trying various educational approaches to see what the kids liked and what didn’t really do it for them. It was (and is) very important to me that they enjoy “school;” this doesn’t mean that they never have to buckle down and just do the work whether or not they want to. But I really don’t want to hear them groan when it’s time for a particular subject matter. If they’re groaning, then perhaps it’s time for a new approach.

For a while, math was something the kids loved. Eva was six when we started homeschooling, and the concepts we covered were pretty basic. Ian was so far ahead in math when he left public school that I took a break from the traditional math trajectory and explored lots of interesting math tangents (and yes, that pun is intended). We used a variety of books, videos and online math resources, which I’ll discuss in the next two posts. The interactive websites offered digital badges for math success which the kids ate up – they still love solving the computer-generated problems simply to earn the badges. It’s brilliant.

But the next year I decided that we needed to get back to a more traditional math course. The kids, unsurprisingly, weren’t all that thrilled about the idea. Textbooks? You’ve got to be kidding! We don’t use textbooks in homeschool! Which is true. We don’t. But I felt the need in this one topic area. We trudged along for little while, and nobody was very happy. They both wanted to do the online math problems instead, which offered the sparkly badges.

I can make sparkly badges, I thought.

No. The kids can make sparkly badges. Yes! I like this better. Less work for me, more fun for them. We shall take two weeks of math class to create a math motivation game and we shall call it MathQuest.

I thought about Guildwars (Ian’s favorite video game) – how he starts with a character and through achieving different quests earns cool weapons and clothes. The kids picked one character each (Ian picked a Guildwars warrior, and Eva picked a fairy) and came up with stuff they could buy for him/her. Ian jumped on Guildwars Wiki, which had lots of pictures he downloaded and turned into his shop inventory. For Eva, we pulled out How to Draw and Paint Fairies by Linda Ravenscroft; we scanned and copied many of its beautiful pictures and supplemented with fairy house images from the beautiful books Fairy Houses and Fairy Houses and Beyond, both by Tracy Kane.

Using our scanner and photo editors, we made all the images the same general proportion. I sent them off to our local print shop for printing and lamination. Then we brought the pieces home and cut them all out. Ian and Eva decided to create five levels – you can only buy certain items if you’ve achieved the corresponding level (and the basic character gets cooler the higher you get). The kids priced all their pieces, making items in higher levels more expensive (inflation!). Then they sorted the items by type (pets, homes, weapons, magical items, fairy wings, clothing, etc.) and put them into labeled envelopes. Finally, we stuck everything up on a big bulletin board. Below is a picture of the whole thing; there are more close-ups at the end of this post.

The complete setup. Ian's character and inventory is on the left; Eva's is on the right. The gold is kept in the middle.

This is our second year using MathQuest. The kids earn one point for each problem they work, whether or not it’s correct. Extra points are granted for positive attitudes. At the end of the math lesson, I convert these points into gold (as the kids priced their items separately, I have to take different exchange rates into account, so 10 points for Eva might be worth 500 gold, whereas 10 points for Ian might be worth only 400).

Although ultimately MathQuest has never been able to completely compete with the online math games, it’s been a lot of fun, and the kids have never lost interest. Textbook work is now relatively enjoyable. At the end of each math session, they take their earnings and make their purchases (oh my, more math!!). They can sell an item back for 50% of its value, and they get an additional gold bonus when they change levels. We’re almost at the end of the game – they’re both level 5 characters now, and will have soon purchased everything possible. That’s ok – we’ll find something else to do. Two years of magic isn’t a bad deal, especially when the whole thing cost me about $10.

And now for the step by step photos:

Eva's character; her gold is on the left; purchased items on the right. Clothes and wings are placed directly on the character.

Ian's character; he keeps his gold in his inventory pack to the left of his warrior.

Eva's basic character, with a basic set of wings. The wings are separate from the body (this allows her to purchase more fancy wings later).

The first set of clothing Eva bought. Note the punched holes at the top.

The holes in the clothes line up with the holes in the wings pieces. They slide over the pins quite nicely.

The fully dressed fairy. Wings go first, then the body, then the clothes.

Eva can also change the face and hair look, just by buying different heads.

The new head fits right over the basic body, covering the original head.

The completed new-headed fairy.

The money. The kids made silver and gold pieces. The large pieces have a higher value than the small.

The kids wrote the values on the backs of the money. Likewise, all items have prices written on the backs.

The items in Eva's pets envelope. Every item has a hole at the top so they can pin them up next to their characters. The single digit number represents what level the character must be at to purchase the item. The larger number is the price in gold pieces.