“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.
Date: 31. July 2019 | By: Simone Jablonski | Category:
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