Using Computer Games to assist Teaching Mathematics in Schools

Abstract

Ever since technological advancements started to appear and gain public acceptance educationists wanted to adapt and use it for the betterment of teaching and learning. Moving Pictures, Radio, Television, PCs, Internet and Smart phones are just some examples for this. Each of them was thought to revolutionize the education as we know it. Many of them did, at least to a fair extent if not to the extents initially predicted.One of the technologies praised by the education researchers, video games stood out from the rest for the unique qualities they showed such as ability to intrinsically motivate and emotionally engage the players with the game. It has been shown that video games are capable of making significant impact to the way students learn, and at the same time video games attracted some negative reputation mainly because of the excessive affection shown by the younger generations towards them. Many researches have been done to investigate how educational games could be developed brining out their positive features and merge them with existing educational system. Having realized the importance of Mathematics education, and the fact that many of our students are struggling at it, this research attempts to see how the power of electronic games could be used to help students achieve a better understanding of and practice in solving mathematical problems, particularly in Geometry. Extensive study has been carried out on what motivates young generations to spend so much time playing electronic games, and at the same time it was investigated why the educational games, also known as serious games have failed to achieve the same attraction. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats presented by electronic games have been discussed so informed decisions can be made in game design process. MathCraft, a prototype game was designed and developed with the intended audience being grade 9 to 1l students of Sri Lankan school. MathCraft has a fantasy storyline and presents its players mathematically inspired tasks to be completed. The game was evaluated with sample set of students, and it was shown MathCraft motivates and engages students with subject matter, than traditional form of exercises. Finally, future extensions and improvements have been presented which would allow real use of electronic games as a teaching aide in schools.