Game and Robots

I have also been working on a game that my students would be able to play which is very basic in design again a great thing and a bad thing about just being able to use Alice. The game involves being able to distinguish whole numbers from integers. In the first of my attempts I used an airplane to fly around and then the student would have to make a choice between a positive number and a negative number. Choosing the positive number would allow the player to move on and choosing the negative would end the game. However, I put some buildings in the game to give it some life but most people I show the game to can only think about 9/11 and the world trade center towers. So, I have been working on using a shark in the desert to kind of move away from some reality. Neither game is finished since it takes quite a bit of time to do even some of what seems to be little things. Again one of the problems I have encountered is that if the students want they can mess up the programming because there is not way to lock that portion up if they start up the game so I would have to use this in the class and not necessarily in a computer lab.
Plane game 30 hours
Shark game 15 hours

I have also been waiting to do my robot section since I teach H.O.P.E. which is about getting students prepared for some type of medical career and I have planned to do this portion during the third quarter. This would be the best time for you to come and see this portion most likely will be toward the end of the third quarter.

Animations

I have struggled with being able to use the programming that I learned over the summer in my mathematics courses. I would love to use the Alice program as a teaching tool in a computer programming class, however, I do not teach that class and I would still need to learn quite a bit more to actually teach that sort of class. I have seen the Alice program though as a way to convey what I see when I look at solving mathematical problems and how I see the relationships of the various sets of numbers. I decided that I could use the Alice program to create short animations to basically personify numbers so that numbers are no longer abstract to my students but have a personality with certain characteristics.
Initially, I began with a very elaborate story of numbers that focused around the number seven and what would become his odyssey through the land of numbers wherein he would come in contact with other numbers from various kingdoms. These kingdoms would include the whole kingdom, the integer kingdom, the rational kingdom, and the irrational kingdom. Seven's travels would bring about the differences in the numbers and how they relate to each other. I think that this idea has possibilities but the time and effort it has taken to do just a little has been a very big learning opportunity for me. I have learned that this idea will take quite a bit of memory and that I would have to build the story by chapters and keep these as separate programs because it is just so big. The programming has been so big that it takes quite a bit of time to get the world started and it takes a few minutes to save the world while working on it. I have put this project on hold at the moment because I need to create other things to use in my classroom.
30 hours spent on this project so far and I have shown some of it to my standards students.

The second round of animations has been shorter ideas now that I have learned how much time it will take to complete even a chapter of the first idea. I have created some short number animations where the numbers are still personified but to show a little idea. One animation shows the students that our character is a person so to speak and goes about showing that a coefficient is not the same even though they may look the same and changes the meaning of a number which means that the operation is different between two regular numbers and between a regular number and a coefficient. I have created four animations for my students along these lines and I have used them as teaching tools rather than as the lessons. I think the animations have been good as being part of the anticipatory set part of the lesson.
40 hours on these four animations which include Mac and PC versions.

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First Week of Class

I just loved the day we had to work with our group. I think this was nice since we are able to sit and accomplish ideas from the lab and to discuss the practical applications of what we are doing as well as being able to bounce ideas off each other. Discussing the practices we see in the lab has been interesting from the perspective that most of the teachers seem genuinely excited about what they are doing. I hate to say it but I do not have as much passion about my discipline of mathematics as these science teachers have about thier disciplines. I do enjoy the aspect of programming that does help teach logic and proper sequencing it will be a great way to discuss and see how vital the Order of Operations is in the so-called real world. It would be nice to see what they are doing now as opposed to seeing it at the very end.

First Week of Lab

I think I may have chosen the wrong profession. Aside from the lecture that is teaching us about how computers and programs work I really have enjoyed this type of lab. Mostly we learn how things work somewhat and then the rest of the time is just discovery. We are given an exercise that incorporates the ideas and work that we have seen in class but the theme and subject is left entirely up to us. Its interesting to see what things the other teachers have come up with and what they are passionate about. Great thing about giving a tool and some material is that a person's passions usually surface in the work.