Possibly. Any "real world" application would have been better than just theory. But games seem like a natural extension of math lessons, and who doesn't like games?
I know of others who have a similar attitude to games, and now, as I approach 50, I can't care much about them either.
Games aren't "Real World."
If you want "Real World" motivation then find some stuff from the real world.
To add some context, I am passionate about putting things in context and making them relevant. I visit schools to talk about uses of math, and explaining how these subjects are anything but isolated and irrelevant stuff to learn and hoops to jump through. I've given talks in venues such as the West Yorkshore Playhouse, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, the Criterion Theatre in the West End of London, Navy Pier in Chicago, and others around the world. I give examples from GPS and SatNav through intercepting drugs couriers and on to gene splicing and DNA analysis. I talk about finding cliques and connections in social networks, and then apply that to detecting plaigarism and ranking web sites. I talk about weather forecasting, roulette, life assurance and debt management.
I mention them in passing when relevant, but I don't talk much about games.
> At school, usually the vast majority of people is interested in games.
And in what aspect of games? Being interested in playing various games is not the same as caring how they work, or caring about the idea that math is used in them. I'm not saying that games can't or shouldn't be used as motivation, but I have grave doubts as to the ubiquity of the appeal that people here seem to be taking for granted. To some extent it's the extremity of the view to which I'm objecting.
chaosmachine earlier said:
> All math classes should incorporate game programming
Leaving aside that particular comment, I still think that tying math only to applications is a bad thing. Motivation is essential, yes, but sometimes there's math that arises from the math, and only finds application much later, if ever.
In short, my personal feeling is that you're wrong that the vast majority of kids would be motivated by games, but I have no stats to back that up, just 25 years of giving talks to school kids. Majority, maybe. Substantial proportion, probably.
Far better to get the motivation by using math in a wide, wide range of applications. It's motivation at all, and the sheer breadth that really matters.
Just to clarify, that was kind of a joke. At least, it wasn't meant to be taken as an all or nothing extremist demand.
If I was going to rewrite that comment, knowing it would be taken literally, it might read something more like:
All math classes should incorporate fun "real world" applications, beyond just theory. More people would pay attention.
But my point was not if everyone is interested in games and game programming, but rather that you can't please everybody all the time, and game programming can be just one application, which could be enough to show students there are many applications for what they are learning. If you want to teach other applications, that's perfectly fine, as long as you reach your teaching goal.
>"People" or "boys" ??
Depends on the game.
In my experience everyone likes some kind of game. It's the rare person who can't let their hair down at least every once in a while and enjoy some meaningless structured play.
Sure, your wife may not like Super Mario Brothers, but I can almost guarantee that if she took a probability and statistics class or studied combinatorics that coin flipping, dice tossing, dominoes, odds-taking and card playing were major topics of discussion and about the only examples that can be used outside of pure theory that represented a simple enough model of the topic for instructional and study purposes and had as common of a shared experience as possible.
That being said, I never played many card games growing up, and when those topics were discussed I had trouble relating and thought that like your wife it made it hard to relate to. But at least I knew what it was and what the basic concepts were.
Similarly you would be very hard pressed to find anyone younger than about 30 who couldn't relate to some kind of game.
Games may occasionally be mentioned in passing when applicable, such as using traditional games as examples of probability or the importance of linear algebra and trigonometry in video games.
The problem is that the mathematics used in video games aren't introductory. You need to know a lot about these foundations before you can get very far. Chances are, if you are studying them at such a level, you know what role they play.
Ultimately I suspect the only way to succeed in maths early on is to consider it to be a kind of game. That is, puzzle solving for fun.
> How do you motivate basic maths, though?
> Not everything can be directly connected
> to drug couriers and what not.
> Ultimately I suspect the only way to succeed
> in maths early on is to consider it to be a
> kind of game. That is, puzzle solving for fun.
When I'm talking to people I show them a couple of things and gauge their reactions. Here are two:
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=604347
Any given person will react in one of two ways. One is to half-shrug as if to say "who cares?" and then move on, the other is to look closer and say "Do that again." People in the former group are most likely to need motivating with things that matter to them which might (but might not!) include games. The others can just have their curiosity poked and you're off and running.
YMMV, personal opinions only, etc, etc.
I think one exercise I would give my pupils would be to determine the real prices of mobile phones.
Enjoyed the shoelace link, will try it the next time I tie my shoes.
And yes, who doesn't like games?