Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
activities have shaped the understanding and teaching practices of the author. In
such classrooms, the notion has prevailed that each day of class can offer
something to everyone.
What characterizes a classroom extends to the games played and developed in
classrooms. A computer program that allows you to converse mathematically or
otherwise on an open basis often ends up being a computer game. What dis-
tinguishes a computer game from a computer application, a calculator, or a
program is its extensibility—its open-endedness. A computer game that brings
an open-ended, conversational experience to you becomes something similar to a
shaded place on a sidewalk or a coffee shop.
Visual Formula
This topic makes use of a computer game that provides you with a way to
experience math as an ongoing conversation. This program is called Visual
Formula. The inventor of Visual Formula is an engineer who decided one day to
see if it might be possible to create a simple, straightforward way that people
seeking to learn math could approach creating an equation in the same way that
they might paint colors on a canvas.
A successful conversation involves continuation and extension of the con-
versation. As mentioned previously, if you speak with people who have told you
that they decided to discontinue the study of math, they often recount an episode
in which they say they encountered a problem they could not solve.
Their account of encountering this problem is usually accompanied by a story
about how they took a test. After encountering the problem, they felt wholly
convinced that they could not or should not go on. The test told them what they
could not do. Officially halted in this way, their conversation with math ended.
Extending a conversation involves finding topics at hand that you feel inclined to
explore. You do not fear them. If you do fear them, your fear does not prove
overwhelming. The topics might prove challenging, but you always have a way
back to what you have already explored. You can try again and again, viewing the
new topic in different ways.
In contrast, you can also listen to people recall how they became lost. They ven-
tured one day into a new area, found everything strange, and panicked. Inevitably,
a few days later a teacher administered a test. The test took them back into the
strange place that provoked the panic. Trauma resulted. The conversation ended.
