Room3d

Will Room3d run on my iPad?

Answer:  No.  It runs on Macs (and PC’s and Linux).  Frankly, if the iPad3 had enough processing power to run Room3d, it would burn your fingers.   Moore’s law gives me the confidence to predict, however, that it will run on the iPad5.   Or the iPad7.  Ask Apple, ok?    When that day comes, the software you are running on your iPad3 will look as dated as Reader Rabbit.  When you aim at a moving target, you have to put the arrow where the target will be when it gets there.

Kurt Squire has been experimenting with the use of off-the-shelf entertainment games as tools for education since the 90’s. His background as an educator of children allows him to connect the dots between the participatory learning that takes place in games and the constructivist legacies of John Dewey and Maria Montessori. This is important because it points it points in exactly the opposite direction of the spoon-feeding, teach-to-the test approach that is doing so much damage in the aftermath of No Child Left Behind.

The author is equally critical of school as it exists today and the educational research establishment that perpetuates it. Even the teacher who has no interest in using video games as an educational tool should read this book because he does such a good job of explaining how technology is influencing our students and why many of the brightest of them no longer find school relevant.

Building on the work of James Paul Gee, Squire discusses the importance of social play in learning and the significance of participation in what Gee calls “affinity groups”. He also explains the importance of learning from failure (“recursive play”) and situated learning in creating a participatory learning experience.

The author’s most important tool has been Civilization, a popular strategy game, which he has used extensively to teach history and geography. Civilization invites the player to build their own world, turning students into designers, a change that Squire takes full advantage of. He doesn’t spend a lot of time discussing the potential uses of the same approach for other subjects; I recommend Keith Devlin’s book “Mathematics Education for a New Era” as a complement to this book.

When players design their own world, as they do in Civilization, this is the first step toward making the player (student, in this case) the co-author of his own learning experience. Gee formalized this important idea in his “Insider Principle”. Gamers call this “modding”. It’s a powerful means of expression that embodies the 19^th century ideal of constructivist leaning while giving adolescents both the means and the motive to teach themselves 21^st century skills like 3-D modeling and Java programming.

These gizmos can be used for graphing functions in the cartesian coordinate plane, and producing trigonometric and logarithmic functions.  The result works a bit like a graphing calculator.   The gizmos are designed to be re-used in various configurations, like building blocks, so expect to see them again.

Buy this book!

Stanford professor and NPR “math guy” Keith Devlin explains in a very readable and accessible style how and why video games are the right tool at the right time to fix some of the worst problems in American education.   He also explains why this technology is a perfect fit for teaching what many educators believe to be the most frequent point of failure  (and my own field) - middle school math.

Devlin consciously builds on the work of James Paul Gee,  who’s landmark book “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy”  started so many of us down this path.  He explains and extends Gee’s principles, translating them into the context of mathematics, and adding 11 of his own.   He reiterates the importance of learning in context (Gee’s principle #17),  the importance of co-op play as a form of social learning (Gee’s principles #34 & #35), and the importance of immediate feedback and instant feedback (Gee’s principles #10 & #11).  

Devlin does a great job of explaining the importance of mixing risk and fun to create a great video game, and why the same mixture can generate engagement in learning in general.   He also explains the importance of supporting the student as they learn (what teachers call “scaffolding).   

After looking at various video game genres, Devlin has concluded that MMORPG’s as the most promising model for building future learning environments.     This may be influenced by his background as an avid WoW’er, but his reasoning is sound.

While brilliant, the book is less than perfect.    Perhaps Devlin has not spent enough time playing games that permit user-made content or “mods”.   In any case, he doesn’t seem to recognize the ability of interactive objects to contain knowledge (Gee’s principles #21 and #33), or their power the give for students to become creators of their own virtual world (Gee’s principles #2 and #36).   Perhaps as a result,  Devlin takes a rather pessimistic view toward the use of virtual environments for learning symbolic mathematics.   I don’t share this view, but only time will tell.

Lucas Gillispie and his high school students are learning lessons in World of Warcraft (the world’s most popular role playing game).    In despair over the sorry state of “educational games”,  Lucas and others have decided to take their classes into powerful commercial games and teach there instead.    This creates a level of engagement and excitement that can’t be matched by traditional classroom  experiences, or the current crop of “educational games”.    Lucas sends his students on “quests” to solve problems and perform tasks.   Some of the tasks are performed in-game, while others require work outside of the game.   Clearly, the presence of a live teacher, providing guidance within the game is powerful, as is the ability to work cooperatively with other students in-game.    Although the beauty,  size, culture, and complexity of WoW give his students much to explore,   this game doesn’t support user-generated content in any meaningful way.  We should watch WoW in School closely to see how they deal with this limitation as they continue to develop new lesson plans.

We have videos to replace the lecture.  We have software to replace the workbook.  We have technology to test the student.   Now….what can be done to help teachers teach?   In other words,  how can we help them deliver individualized coaching precisely where and when it’s needed? 

By building a complete learning environment around the needs of the student,  then putting the teacher in that environment, because that’s what the student needs most of all.

This gizmo uses an area model to explain what is really happening when we multiply two fractions.

Using the basic protractor gadget to practice measuring random angles.  One of our first geometry gadgets.

Introduction to the basic fraction gizmos.   These will be showing up again in future videos.