Narratives | MathCityMap

Trail of the Month: Un paseo pirata matemático

Our new Trail of the Month is located in Alcobendas, Spain. The trail in the town north of Madrid has been frequently used in teacher practice, as shown by the high number of more than 230 downloads. It was created by José Fernández de la Cigoña and Isabel Docampo for presenting MathCityMap during the Spanish […]

In the following interview, José Fernández de la Cigoña highlights the use of the MathCityMap pirate narrative and introduces her trail “Un paseo pirata matemático por el Jardín de La Vega”.

How do you get in contact with MathCityMap?

We got in touch with MathCityMap by the Spanish website Marzo, mes de las matemáticas from whom we were asked to prepare a trail to contribute to the month of mathematics. So, we looked for some information, signed up for the MathCityMap MOOC and started creating on our trail. We aim at a broad revision of learned topics, mainly geometry but also divisibility, probability or proporcionality, among others.

Our students in school have already worked on the trail! In fact, we are a little surprised by the high number of downloads of our trail by other users.

Please describe your trail.

Our trail is placed in a park in Alcobendas, a city close to Madrid. The website Marzo, mes de las matemáticas guided us on the kind of tasks we could look for, and one great characteristic of this trail is that most of the tasks can be easily recreated in any city around the world [so-called Generic Tasks]. The special attribute of this trail lies in a story connecting all the tasks, a sort of pirate adventure based on the MathCityMap pirate narrative.

Please sketch one of your tasks. What is the mathematical question? How could you solve it?

The most inventive task in our trail is “La batalla final” (The final battle). It is located on a playground where you can find a pirate ship. The aim of the task is to find the probability of hitting the ship if you fire a cannon. So it’s about probability and geometry since you need to evaluate the ship area and the area of the playground to know the probability.

Why do you use the pirate narrative. What are its benefits?

Since we have been developed a pirate story, it seemed so natural to use the pirate narrative. In fact, this narrative inspired us to create the story.

Portal & App Update: Narratives

Ahoy mateys! A new exciting feature for MathCityMap is now available both in the App and Web portal – Narratives. Narratives carry the app users away to new thematic settings. The route creators can optionally enable a specific narrative for each of their routes, the narrative gets automatically applied and can be experienced after downloading […]

Ahoy mateys! A new exciting feature for MathCityMap is now available both in the App and Web portal – Narratives. Narratives carry the app users away to new thematic settings. The route creators can optionally enable a specific narrative for each of their routes, the narrative gets automatically applied and can be experienced after downloading the route in the App.

The App’s text (such as task descriptions, hints, answer feedback, etc.), is replaced or expanded with dialogue lines from the narrative assistant: a companion that travels alongside the player and aids in their quest. The App’s graphical elements (banners, backgrounds, the map, etc.) are replaced with elements allusive to the narrative.

Our first narrative: Pirates!

And so, we present the first narrative: Pirates!

In this narrative the player is a pirate Captain that seeks to collect as many coins as possible and find the trail’s treasure! They are accompanied by their trusty parrot, Perry. Perry will help them solve riddles, getting them closer to the treasure one enigma at a time. When all the riddles are solved, the Captain finds the treasure!

To enable a narrative on a route, go to: Portal > Routes > My Routes and select the route. Then, on the route’s details click “Edit”, scroll down to the “2. Settings” tab and select the desired narrative from the dropdown list. After this, you just have to click “save” and the narrative will be applied. From that point on, when users download your route, they will have a new adventure awaiting for them.

New Graphics

The trail is now represented by a treasure map

Companion

Perry the parrot accompanies the player on his adventures.

Enabling narratives

In the section “2. Settings” select a narrative from the dropdown menu.

Our objective is to provide the MathCityMap App users with fun experiences that feel distinct, fresh, but still follow the general flow of the original math trail solving experience. As such, narrative routes will immerse the users in a small story and improve their motivation to continue solving the tasks and try even more routes.

Other changes

Introducing LaTex to MCM (App & Web): Writing mathematical formulas with the computer is not always easy. For a long time we have planned to support LaTex formulas in MCM. Finally, this feature is available to all users through the integration of the MathJax library. Find a documentation here.
Click images to enlarge (App): Images such as the title image, hint images or sample solution images can now be viewed and zoomed in a separate view, just click them.
Minor bug fixes.