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At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games. Of course you can never satisfy everyone, but that's not a good reason IMO to not do anyt

At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games. Of course you can never satisfy everyone, but that's not a good reason IMO to not do anything just because a few people might not like it.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
> At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games. "People" or "boys" ?? I'd be interested to know your basis for your assertion, and now that the question has been raised I'll start taking informal polls as I go out and give talks. I do about 90 talks a year, and I'll see what the feedback is. And in what aspect of games? Being interested in playing various games is not the same as caring how they work, or caring about the idea that math is used in them. I'm not saying that games can't or shouldn't be used as motivation, but I have grave doubts as to the ubiquity of the appeal that people here seem to be taking for granted. To some extent it's the extremity of the view to which I'm objecting. chaosmachine earlier said: > All math classes should incorporate game programming I really can't believe that such an extreme view is a good thing. It would be akin to saying: Actually math isn't interesting in its own right, we really just need it to write really cool games. Leaving aside that particular comment, I still think that tying math only to applications is a bad thing. Motivation is essential, yes, but sometimes there's math that arises from the math, and only finds application much later, if ever. In short, my personal feeling is that you're wrong that the vast majority of kids would be motivated by games, but I have no stats to back that up, just 25 years of giving talks to school kids. Majority, maybe. Substantial proportion, probably. Far better to get the motivation by using math in a wide, wide range of applications. It's motivation at all, and the sheer breadth that really matters.
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  chaosmachine earlier said: All math classes should incorporate game programming Just to clarify, that was kind of a joke. At least, it wasn't meant to be taken as an all or nothing extremist demand. If I was going to rewrite that comment, knowing it would be taken literally, it might read something more like: All math classes should incorporate fun "real world" applications, beyond just theory. More people would pay attention.
- oscardelben 17y ago
  It probably depends on the age, but in primary school both boys and girls love games. Note that I'm not talking about computer games, although that could be an interesting application. But my point was not if everyone is interested in games and game programming, but rather that you can't please everybody all the time, and game programming can be just one application, which could be enough to show students there are many applications for what they are learning. If you want to teach other applications, that's perfectly fine, as long as you reach your teaching goal.
- elblanco 17y ago
  >> At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games. >"People" or "boys" ?? Depends on the game. In my experience everyone likes some kind of game. It's the rare person who can't let their hair down at least every once in a while and enjoy some meaningless structured play. Sure, your wife may not like Super Mario Brothers, but I can almost guarantee that if she took a probability and statistics class or studied combinatorics that coin flipping, dice tossing, dominoes, odds-taking and card playing were major topics of discussion and about the only examples that can be used outside of pure theory that represented a simple enough model of the topic for instructional and study purposes and had as common of a shared experience as possible. That being said, I never played many card games growing up, and when those topics were discussed I had trouble relating and thought that like your wife it made it hard to relate to. But at least I knew what it was and what the basic concepts were. Similarly you would be very hard pressed to find anyone younger than about 30 who couldn't relate to some kind of game.
- ianbishop 17y ago
  Everything here is spot on. Most branches of mathematics do not apply directly to games in the same sense that they apply to sciences, financial analysis and other real-life examples. Games may occasionally be mentioned in passing when applicable, such as using traditional games as examples of probability or the importance of linear algebra and trigonometry in video games. The problem is that the mathematics used in video games aren't introductory. You need to know a lot about these foundations before you can get very far. Chances are, if you are studying them at such a level, you know what role they play.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago

> At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games. "People" or "boys" ?? I'd be interested to know your basis for your assertion, and now that the question has been raised I'll start taking informal polls as I go out and give talks. I do about 90 talks a year, and I'll see what the feedback is. And in what aspect of games? Being interested in playing various games is not the same as caring how they work, or caring about the idea that math is used in them. I'm not saying that games can't or shouldn't be used as motivation, but I have grave doubts as to the ubiquity of the appeal that people here seem to be taking for granted. To some extent it's the extremity of the view to which I'm objecting. chaosmachine earlier said: > All math classes should incorporate game programming I really can't believe that such an extreme view is a good thing. It would be akin to saying: Actually math isn't interesting in its own right, we really just need it to write really cool games. Leaving aside that particular comment, I still think that tying math only to applications is a bad thing. Motivation is essential, yes, but sometimes there's math that arises from the math, and only finds application much later, if ever. In short, my personal feeling is that you're wrong that the vast majority of kids would be motivated by games, but I have no stats to back that up, just 25 years of giving talks to school kids. Majority, maybe. Substantial proportion, probably. Far better to get the motivation by using math in a wide, wide range of applications. It's motivation at all, and the sheer breadth that really matters.

chaosmachine 17y ago
chaosmachine earlier said: All math classes should incorporate game programming Just to clarify, that was kind of a joke. At least, it wasn't meant to be taken as an all or nothing extremist demand. If I was going to rewrite that comment, knowing it would be taken literally, it might read something more like: All math classes should incorporate fun "real world" applications, beyond just theory. More people would pay attention.
oscardelben 17y ago
It probably depends on the age, but in primary school both boys and girls love games. Note that I'm not talking about computer games, although that could be an interesting application. But my point was not if everyone is interested in games and game programming, but rather that you can't please everybody all the time, and game programming can be just one application, which could be enough to show students there are many applications for what they are learning. If you want to teach other applications, that's perfectly fine, as long as you reach your teaching goal.
elblanco 17y ago
>> At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games. >"People" or "boys" ?? Depends on the game. In my experience everyone likes some kind of game. It's the rare person who can't let their hair down at least every once in a while and enjoy some meaningless structured play. Sure, your wife may not like Super Mario Brothers, but I can almost guarantee that if she took a probability and statistics class or studied combinatorics that coin flipping, dice tossing, dominoes, odds-taking and card playing were major topics of discussion and about the only examples that can be used outside of pure theory that represented a simple enough model of the topic for instructional and study purposes and had as common of a shared experience as possible. That being said, I never played many card games growing up, and when those topics were discussed I had trouble relating and thought that like your wife it made it hard to relate to. But at least I knew what it was and what the basic concepts were. Similarly you would be very hard pressed to find anyone younger than about 30 who couldn't relate to some kind of game.
ianbishop 17y ago
Everything here is spot on. Most branches of mathematics do not apply directly to games in the same sense that they apply to sciences, financial analysis and other real-life examples. Games may occasionally be mentioned in passing when applicable, such as using traditional games as examples of probability or the importance of linear algebra and trigonometry in video games. The problem is that the mathematics used in video games aren't introductory. You need to know a lot about these foundations before you can get very far. Chances are, if you are studying them at such a level, you know what role they play.