Sunday, September 27, 2009

Money Exchange Game

I have played a lot of flash games on PrimaryGames website. The game named Coinz! is disturbingly hard and addictive at the same time. The target of the game is to make money disappear by picking up the same amount of money using two currencies.

The first game involved exchanging Singapore Dollars to Russian Rubles. This was hard. There were lots of coins marked 1, but it is harder to determine if the coin is 1.oo or o.o1. Choosing Hint from the list on the right you can see the value when marking a coin.

After all the Singapore Dollars were exchanged the level was completed. Now the new currency was Lithuanian Litas. The exchange rate is shown above the box and below the box you can see how many Rubles you should find matching the Litas you have chosen.

Interestingly the third level seemed easier to me. Now Polish Zlotys were exchanged to Litas, and the value of the currencies being nearly the same made it easy.

A very good game in mathematics learning. I could imagine that kids are faster to find the right coins than I was.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Shift Happens - A Challenge for Teachers

I first saw this video about one year ago. The video got me really thinking about the world we and especially the young people live in. I think every teacher should see this and think for a moment. Does the education we give them really prepare them for anything?

This is the new official update to the original "Shift Happens" video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.

Did You Know 4.0




This is the previous edition from 2008 - also worth to check:

Did You Know 3.0


The 2007 version is very similar, but I included it for reference.

Did You Know 2.0


And this hopefully is the original, published earlier in 2007

Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age


Saturday, September 5, 2009

Geometric Art

BibliOdyssey introduces scans of wonderful geometric art.

Here is an example of Lorenz Ströer's 'Geometria et Perspectiva' in 1567:

Geometria et Perspectiva - Lorenz Stöer, 1567 cand this is an example from the large Munich University Library manuscript called: 'Geometria et Perspectiva: Corpora Regulata et Irregulata':

Stoer in colour - HFV, 1567 m
See all the images in The Geometric Landscape and also follow the links on the page.