News

Geometry Mobile (GeM): Mobile Collaborative and Tangible Math Activities

22 of May, 2009 By: Marcelo Milrad

Learning geometry presents interesting opportunities for integrating traditional manipulatives and new ones that bring together mobile, web, and 3D tools. In the GeM project, we want to promote and enhance collaboration by enabling learners to engage in mathematical activities across diverse settings. Our goal is to design and implement meaningful learning tasks supported by mobile and ubiquitous technologies that allow students collaborative explore, learn and visualize math. The learning objectives include the exploration of concepts such as height, perimeter, area, and volume in order to design a new building for the university.

Last week, young students (ages 11-14) from two local schools participated in the first GeM trials. Students used mobile devices to measure and calculate different parameters utilizing GPS. Rich mobile content was used to support learners in addition to utilizing the camera in the phone to take photographs that are used in the indoor activity. Once the students have determined the volume of the planned building in the outdoors setting, they returned to the classroom and their data is imported into a 3D design tool. The students then designed a building using this 3D tool and used the photographs they took as textures. Using additional software, they can visualize their building on a map using an augmented reality tool, a webcam, the computer screen and special 2D barcodes. New trials with more classes will be conducted later in the fall. The video below illustrates the fundamental concepts and ideas behind this project: