The walking around and bumping into others part is exactly what can make it more tangible for otherwise uninterested students, I’d think.
But if you don’t need this to keep everybody interested, good for you. I myself think I know a few teenagers for whom this would work quite well.
Well, but as I said before – and this was the main point of my first post – you can already do that now. Even better, for the uninspired teenagers and the kind of math they need you can get nice models of things like spheres and sliced cones that they can walk around or hold in their hands.
I think you teach very different uninspired teens from the ones I do. Maybe it helps that I just do homework assistance and not a full teaching job, so I get sent all the ones who fail at their maths class.
Anyway in my situation/experience the uninspired teens are way easier to engage using some fancy-schmancy AR app on their phones than by holding a (dusty wooden ) model.
Also, You can’t animate a model.
I don’t get why you are so negative, it’s just another tool in the box. You don’t need to throw away the models or anything.
Of course you can. Just pick it up and move it around. Toss it in the air if you like.
I’m all for having lots of tools available, and if someone made a good case for these VR models being an improvement over the status quo I’d be a supporter. However, both in the video illustrating the technology and in some of the discussion we’ve been talking about 2D projections, which is the status quo. That’s all I came here to point out.
I’ve been working with innovations, technological and otherwise, in math education for my entire career. Most of the time the innovations are effective (or even plausible) only on a very small scale, for unrealistically small classes, in other cases the innovations ultimately get used to justify whopping increases in student/teacher. I’m skeptical from experience.
Most of my best classes, the ones where the students perform the best at the end and (from the student evaluations) enjoy the class the most, are 99% me with a piece of chalk at a big board, or pen on an electronic counterpart. If I draw a 3D surface on the 2D blackboard and show the students how to do the same, no matter how crappy the representation they get more out of that then clicking buttons or dragging pictures across their screen.
But you can’t turn a cylinder into a cone. Then slice off a part and show it’s a parabola. Of course you can do that on a normal screen. Some kids just are more interested if they think something is fun.
And calling this ‘just a 2D projection’ is technically correct, but is absolutely not what we’re talking about here. We are talking to a 2d projection mapped to the camera position of the phone. Which makes it a lot more interesting. I’m imagining a lesson where I position the shape in the spot of my head and let the kids give me funny heads. I guarantee you there will be a few extra kids engaged who did not like tossing the cuboid model in the air last week. And of course a few will be bored because they thought the model easier to grasp.
I think that’s where you and I differ. I only teach groups of kids who are afraid to flunk their math test. So most of the time max 5 kids. But those 5 kids are often extremely hard to engage, because they resist the idea that math can be fun with every cell in their brain. If I can use this on a phone app to get even one of those 5 interested, it’s a win for me.
Course you can.
(Just to be clear, in case you’ve really never seen one of these before, these pieces come apart.)
Anyway, if you find the VR models useful for your students, and think this difference in how the 2D projections are accessed is important, then go for it. Me, I don’t see it. But, what do I know.
Yes. And now turn it into a cylinder. Or in micky-mouse’s head.
Not to diss those they’re very nice as well. And if I had to choose between the wooden models (we have very nice new ones just last year, kept together with magnets, loads better then the old ones that used velcro 
) I’d go for the wooden models. But as an extra option the AR version seems very useful to me.
P.S.
Keep up the good work, and don’t let the distractions wear you down (you seem a tad bitter, like most teachers who have seen too many ‘improvements’)
I’m not bitter; I have the best job in the world. I’m a little peeved at myself for commenting here; usually I avoid the math threads, and now I remember why.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
