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.