Tag Archives: math

This post was originally published on the Fred Rogers Center Blog and appears here with permission. This week my colleagues at Education Development Center and SRI International and I are releasing findings from our Prekindergarten Transmedia Mathematics Study. This research is part of Ready to Learn, a partnership between the US Department of Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS. The basic premise of Ready to Learn is that it marshals public media resources in support of 2- to…

Well, it’s been just around a year since I received an email that AdditionBlocks had won the 2012 STEM Video Game Challenge for one of the Educator entry streams. I have really enjoyed being a part of this contest, and thanks to the Cooney Center, PBS, and E-Line Media, a lot of doors have opened to promote the game. Pretty quickly after receiving the news, I (practically) ran out to purchase an iPad2 and a MacBook to build for iOS…

The Cooney Center has just kicked off an exciting multi-sector partnership with experts in neuroscience and learning, seasoned video game designers, and impact game publisher E-line Media to create an innovative video game that teaches fundamental math skills. This “Gut Sense” team brings together some of the world’s foremost experts in learning, brain plasticity, and videogames (Daphne Bavelier and Sean Green); number sense and its relation to school math achievement (Justin Halberda); children’s media (Michael Levine and Lori Takeuchi); media law (George Rose); designing action videogames (Sean Vesce and Mike Wikan); and publishing of learning games (Mike Angst and Alan Gershenfeld). This all-star cast is poised to create a videogame for children ages 7-11 that develops the brain’s numerical intuitions.

Hello again! When I wrote my blog post on my experiences as one of the Educator Winners from the 2012 STEM Video Game Challenge, I didn’t have a chance to discuss my method for designing games for students. I’ve thought about this quite a bit, and wanted to share some of my tips with other aspiring game designers here. First, there are two good articles on video games and learning at the STEM Challenge website at the bottom of their Resources page. These…

Hello everyone! My name is Marty Esterman and I am the Educator Grand Prize winner for the PBS Kids stream in this year’s STEM Video Game Challenge event for my entry, AdditionBlocks. I have been quite humbled by this whole experience-and I want to thank The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, PBS Kids, E-Line Media, and the AMD Foundation for all their support. I have met some really great people! I also want to thank my wife, Stacy, who has also been…

How does one know that an educational experience is actually helping students learn? Our company Motion Math makes educations games for the iPad and iPhone that let kids play with numbers. It’s easy for us to think, as we’re making our apps, and watching students play them, to believe that learning is happening, especially because we spend a lot of time ensuring that our designs follow good pedagogical and usability principles. However, the history of educational technology is littered with many false promises and disappointing results, most recently given an overview by Matt Richtel of The New York Times. For these reasons, and for our own self-understanding, it’s important that we sometimes hold our learning technologies up to scientific scrutiny.

Great piece by Edutopia, Rapping Math Teachers Bring It, featuring the Rapping Mathematician Also check out these instructions to learn how to write your own math rap!      

Today we bring you the first in a series of STEM related blog posts — starting with last year’s Cooney Center Prize finalists for the Motion Math — Gabriel Adauto and Jacob Klein. Throughout the process of creating Motion Math, our bouncing star fraction game for the iPhone and iPad, we’ve greatly benefited from conversations with our primary users: kids. The game was just released, and you can buy it here. We were honored this past June to be a…

The first annual National STEM Video Game Challenge is now open for applications. This nationwide challenge invites game makers big and small to show their passion for playing and making video games. This competition aims to motivate children’s interests in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The Developer Prize challenges experienced game developers to design mobile games, including games for the mobile Web, for young children (grades pre-K through 4) that teach key Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts…

iPhone Game Makes Math Physical — Tilt gameplay gives learners an intuitive sense of fractions Motion Math, the pioneer of movement based learning games, today announces the launch of their fractions game which will help students master mathematics. Fractions are a notoriously difficult area of math for many learners. One half, 1/2, .5, and 50 percent all refer to the same amount, but to many students learning fractions, theyʼre only equally bewildering. Research has shown both that fractions are crucial…