Category: General

Trail of the Month: Telaga Tujuh Island Adventure

Author Simon BarlovitsDate
General

This month we present a mathtrail from Indonesia. After hearing of the new MathCityMap pirate narrative, our MathCityMap educator Adi Nur Cahyono created the “Telaga Tujuh Island Adventure Trail” to discover this new feature. He gave us an interview about the new pirate narrative feature of MCM.

Why do you use the pirate narrative?

I got the information that there is an app update by adding a pirate narrative in the MathCityMap app, so I immediately searched for a route that matched this narrative. One of which is a route on the Telaga Tujuh Island. The pirate narrative makes my route look very interesting. This narrative fits perfectly with the situation, location and tasks on this route. Adventure at sea, with problems on an island that can only be reached by sailing. It’s like a real pirate, isn’t it?

How could students benefit from the usage of such a narrative?

Students know the pirate character and his adventure stories are looking for treasure. This is the same as math trails ideas. Combining the two makes students interested in exploring the trail by acting like their imaginary character and at the same time they also learn mathematics and its application.

What is the special attribute of your trail? What differentiate your trail from others?

The “Telaga Tujuh Adventure Trail” is a route located on an uninhabited remote island in the Aceh Province of Indonesia. The route is explored by sailing to find some locations and real problems relating to mathematics with pirate narrative, for example, the Ship Repairs task: “Curses! Th’ ship’s hull be breached! We need to repair it! Let us use this here tree. Can ye determine th’ weight o’ this here tree trunk in kg? 1cm³ o’ wood weighs 800g.”

While working on this trail explores discover both mathematics and nature. They learn mathematics while adventurous into the world of imagination in reality and enjoy the beautiful nature of Indonesia. Discover MathCityMap, visit Indonesia!

Good to know: Adi Nur Cahyono created the “Telaga Tujuh Island Adventure Trail” in order to discover our new pirate narrative. Therefore, the used a lot wizard tasks of this trail, because the MCM provides for each of these tasks a short story fitting to the pirate narrative.

MathCityMap visits Namibia

Author Simon BarlovitsDate
EventsGeneral

Matthias Ludwig presents the MathCityMap project in Namibia!

At J.G. Van der Wath Secondary School Matthias Ludwig created some MathCityMap tasks with Namibian teachers during a teacher education program. One of these new tasks is “The tire”, for which students have to calculate the circumference of a semi-visible car tire.

The participants of the education program were highly interested in the MathCityMap idea – so we are looking forward to a lot of interesting task which hopefully will be created soon!

You can find photos and further information on our MCM Twitter site.

MathCityMap and MoMaTrE celebrate the Erasmusdays 2019

Author Simone JablonskiDate
EventsGeneral

On Saturday, October 12, 2019, we celebrated the international Erasmusdays with our Erasmus + project MoMaTrE. During perfect weather, mathematical trails were conducted at the five locations in Frankfurt, Lyon, Nitra, Porto and Santander.

Together with our partners, fourteen new MathCityMap mathtrails were created for this day and these were downloaded more than 200 times on Saturday alone. This is a great success for the project. In particular, we would like to thank the DAAD for supporting this special activity.

But the main actors were undoubtedly the numerous mathtrailer and task solvers who were happy about sweets and certificates. 

Celebrate the Erasmusdays 2019 with MathCityMap!

Author Simone JablonskiDate
General

Did you know? From 10th – 12th October 2019, the EU celebrates the Erasmusdays. Of course, MathCityMap should not be missing as content-related basis of the Eramus+ project MoMaTrE!

Our partners in Porto, Santander, Lyon and Nitra are celebrating the Erasmusday on Saturday, 12.10.2019 at all five locations. There will be exciting mathtrail tasks to solve. For successful task solver, we have prices and certificates.

Further information about all locations can be found in the table:

Frankfurt Goetheplatz 11am – 3 pm
Lyon Campus de la Doua afternoon
Santander Doctor Madrazo Cultural Center from 11.30am
Porto Jardins do Palácio de Cristal from 10am
Nitra Svätopluk Square in Nitra, SK from 10am

We are looking forward to many Mathtrailers!

The task wizard: Creating tasks as if by magic

Author Simon BarlovitsDate
General

Creating a MathCityMap task is too difficult and time-consuming? In this article we´ll introduce you to our tool “task-wizard”, which enables you to create tasks with a few clicks. In the following we´ll explain, how to use the “task-wizard”.

In all cities exist similar objects, which provide many possibilities for outdoor mathematics. For those objects, e.g. the gradient of a ramp or the mass of a cuboid stone, we prepared standardized templates in our web portal. Altogether, we arranged twenty variegated templates for the themes combinatorics, algebra (functions) and geometry.

To create a new task with our wizard, you only have to choose one of the given templates and put in a picture of the object and your measured values. As the wizard generates the sample solution and the hints (partly with pictures) automatically, the tool allows you to create a task with only a few clicks.

Step-by-step instruction:

  1. Open the option „New task” in the MathCityMap portal
  2. Click on the option „Wizard“.
  3. Choose your favoured „Wizard-task” (e.g. velocity – escalator – velocity in m/s) and fill in your measured values.
  4. Upload a picture for your task and define the geolocation, Done!

Have fun!

Exhibition of the Competition “Land of Ideas”

Author Simon BarlovitsDate
General

MathCityMap was honoured by the German competition “Land of Ideas”! The projects of the ten award winners are currently presented in a branch of the Deutsche Bank in Wiesbaden.

Next to the exhibition we created two math trails in Wiesbaden. The trail “Land der Ideen WI-kurz” is recommended for students from the sixth grade. To solve the tasks you have to discover the environment around the Marktkirche of Wiesbaden through accurate observing, measuring and counting. For users from the ninth grade we prepared the trail “Land der Ideen WI-lang”.

Check out our new MathCityMap trails in Wiesbaden. Have fun!

More posts about the “Land of Ideas” award:
– MathCityMap is one of the Landmarks 2019
– “Land of Ideas“ Team visits MathCityMap

MathCityMap training for teachers to support the SmartCity Semarang Program

Author Moritz Baumann-WehnerDate
GeneralMath Trails

Eighteen Mathematics Teachers at the Junior High School level in the city of Semarang have participated in MathCityMap training organized by the Department of Mathematics at the Semarang State University and Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) in collaboration with IDMI Goethe Universität Frankfurt Germany. The training began on September 4, 2019 and was held at the Mathematics Laboratory of UNNES and the environment around the UNNES campus.

In this 32-hour training, trainees received an explanation of MathCityMap, the theory of developing mobile math trails followed by outdoor practice around campus to try out existing math trails and also create new math trail tasks and routes. Each participant is also required to create at least one math trail route in city park near the school where they work.

This program aims to disseminate the results of research in the field of mathematics education by universities so that it benefits the community, especially schools. In addition, this program is also an effort to support the SmartCity program launched by the Semarang City Government.

At present, in Semarang City several MathCityMap trails are available, such as those available at the Tugu Muda Area, Simpang Lima Shopping Center, Indonesia Kaya City Park, the Old City, the Central Java Grand Mosque Area, and several other locations. Mathtrails with MathCityMap are also available at Taman Pintar Jogjakarta, Kota Padang Sumatera, Kota Palu Sulawesi, Telaga Tujuh Island Aceh, and several other cities.

Land of Ideas Team visits MathCityMap

Author Simone JablonskiDate
General

 

“This application firstly combines outdoor activities with mathematics tasks. Students can walk mobile math trails for the first time. This is motivating and supports learning.” – Matthias Ludwig, Project Manager.

 

After MathCityMap was honored as Landmark 2019 in the Land of Ideas in May 2019, the team visited us. On their website, they present MCM with a video and interview. Find most of the contents translated into English in the following part:

Outdoor Mathematics for Scavenger Hunters

Solving formulas, determining vectors, learning the multiplication tables – all this is part of math lessons. And for some it is really annoying. But what if the tasks are posed by smartphone and solved in a team – and outdoors? The MathCityMap (MCM) app sends students in their city on math trails. For learners, this means leaving the classroom, finding their way via an app, solving tasks in different places that are connected to their own reality, receiving direct feedback and – if necessary – using digital hints. This is how math is fun and real. If you want, you develop your own tasks for the MCM portal and its EU-wide community.

 

Good to know:     

  • There are also paths in Asia and the USA. The app is translated into eleven languages.     
  • 9000 tasks can be solved according to the current state.     
  • The community currently has 3200 members. In five years it will be 25,000, which solve more than 100,000 tasks on all continents.    
  •  The system will be opened for other subjects and offer additional features.

 

Three questions to Matthias Ludwig

How did you come up with the idea for your project?

 
Unfortunately, math learning is not fun for many people. You learn with more joy when the content is connected to life. The environment offers enough learning opportunities. The special places and objects where you can practice math outside should be visible to all interested teachers. Smartphones with GPS technology help to find them. Likewise, hints can be given to the solution and a solution check can be carried out. The tasks are created and exchanged via an affiliated web portal.
 
Where are you today in the implementation?
 
The project is being intensively promoted by a European consortium and mainly by the working group MATIS I of the Goethe University Frankfurt. The app and web portal are currently translated into eleven languages; MathCityMap is used by schools and other educational institutions in more than 20 countries. Currently [as of July 2019] we have more than 3200 registered users and more than 9000 tasks in the system that can be used by other users. The range of tasks currently ranges from arithmetic to geometry and functions to stochastics.
 
Where do you see your project in five years?
 
MathCityMap will have more than 25,000 members in the community, with more than 100,000 assignments on every continent. At more than 10,000 schools worldwide, trails are created with MathCityMap. Ongoing, international “MathCityMap Educators” are selected who are involved in the project and bring the project idea to teachers. MathCityMap will move forward in terms of technology and offer additional features in the area of ​​learning analytics such as the digital classroom and tasks with augmented reality. We will also develop our content and open the system to other disciplines such as physics or biology.

 

User Survey 2019

Author MathCityMap AdminDate
General

Update 09.09.2019: The questionnaire of our user survey will be open until Sunday. We appreciate your feedback on MathCityMap to improve the system.

Our web portal and the app went through major changes during the last year. Technically, we implemented new features, the layout changed, the community has been grown and so did the number of tasks and trails. Thanks to you as active members of the MCM community, there are MCM tasks in more than 40 countries! Moreover, we are interested in how you work with the system and what your experiences are. Therefore, we created a little online survey and kindly ask you to participate. 

Link to online survey

We appreciate your feedback on MathCityMap to improve the system.


Best wishes
The MCM-Team

MathCityMap at 19JAEM

Author Simone JablonskiDate
General

On 4th of July, Matthias Ludwig and Simone Jablonski presented MathCityMap for 40 Spanish Math Teachers at 19JAEM. With a variety of Spanish maths problems, the teachers ran two math trails around the conference building near the harbor of A Coruna.

Obviously, the teachers had a lot of fun while solving the tasks. In accordance, we received good feedback and are optimistic that many new  “Rutas Matematicas” will be created in Spain!