On Friday, August 13, 2004, at 11:23 PM, Erik Hansen wrote:
many "get" the concept of a sine wave only after seeing a visual representation.
maybe the profs should talk to the game writers?
I usually don't pipe up in this list, feeling somewhat like a meerkat among lions and elephants, but now we're talking about my field.
As much money as we pour into school computers in the US, you'd think we'd use them for more than just typing, keeping grades, and Internet research. The problem is that kids (who play video games) and programmers can see the possibilities like variable-dependent animation and game-like user interaction. The vast majority of teachers think of computers as business machines with tools like spreadsheets, databases, and word processors.
For about 7 years my students have been using computers to learn through games that I have designed, and they have made presentations that include variable dependent animation. For instance, one student made a stack that painted a picture randomly in one of a dozen color schemes and the player had to click on the type of color scheme. Another made a graph under the normal curve (for Stat class) that animated according to three different variables, all entered by the user. There are scores more.
One interesting site that advances the view of using video-game metaphor as an educational design for programming is http://www.marcprensky.com/.
Mark Greenberg English Teacher Revolutionary _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
