"Motion Math creates movement-based learning games that give players an intuitive sense of math."
"Motion Math: Move, Play, Learn!"
"Motion Math provides a much-needed experience to bring the body more fully into mathematics learning” – Roy Pea, David Jacks Professor of Learning Sciences, Stanford University
Ummm...this is a hand-held game that involves tilting an iPhone. If you go to the site and watch the promotional video, you see kids sitting on couches, staring at little screens. So what if they might get better at fractions? They most likely already get enough screen time. And yet, there they are in the video, sitting on the couch, watching a little ball bounce on the screen while their precious brains are wasting away into cyberspace, or wherever brains go when their bodies aren't moving.
Thus ends my rant.
You go girl! We need more rants against the couchers. Your anonymous father.
ReplyDeleteFrom a FB friend:
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how holding an iPhone counts as "motion"
My reply:
That's my point! It's really un-truth in advertising using the latest education buzz words. And, to add insult to insult, their own research (on the site) is inconclusive as to the game's impact on learning. It's just more 'fun' in education without any real content or meaning.
From another FB friend (my brother):
ReplyDeleteIn our lifetime there will be bio-wetware. Physical inplants into parts of our head, or appendages, physical integration of mind and computer. Then you will get the kids off the couch. Optic links with digital projection on to the back of... the retnia for eye / hand movement sync. Constant streams of info with spatial recognition. Look at a building and the computer system augments the image with data..ie...address….Tenants...when it was built...crime statistics..nearest starbucks...or place to get a tasty indian food treat.
No I am not crazy or paranoid...you can already do this with your iphone.
My reply:
Yes, but if we don't move our bodies, eventually our brains won't know what to do with the information. We'll loose our problem solving and creative abilities and once we go down that road all the technology in the world won't be able to h...elp us out of that mess. Besides, you're the tech guy who does grueling bike races. You've got daily balance between your daily screen time and the rest of your life. Your brain was already mature before the 'tech revolution' and children's brains are so much more vunerable to this kind of approach to education.