Couple Samples

[Mark Greenberg]

Rev Educators (or Ed Revolutionaries),

	Here are two sample stacks that have proven useful in my classroom:

1.  Domain:  One of the state standards in Arizona (USA) is for high 
school students to be able to identify the range and domain of a 
graphed function.  Since our inner-city public school was in danger of 
being taken over by the state for poor test scores, the admin 
desperately sought a new way to get low achieving kids to pass the 
test.  I sold them the idea of using computer games made in Revolution 
(and other rapid development tools).  Some of these games I made, while 
others were made by my advanced students in a project-based learning 
environment.
	Anyway, I made this stack in about two hours over a weekend for use 
the next week.  It presents a graph.  If the line on the graph is not a 
function, then the student should click on the "Not a Function" button. 
  If it is, then she should type the domain's lower limit, x, and the 
upper limit.  Each term will become dark blue when it is correct.  Same 
with the range.  If the term is infinity, then the student should press 
the space bar (only displays correctly on Macs).  When the domain and 
range have been entered correctly, it increases the score and presents 
a new question.
	To eliminate the possibility of a student trying every number until 
she gets the right answer (a clever algorithm if you don't understand 
what "range" and "domain" mean), the program gives a new question and 
subtracts from the score after too many deletions.  When the student 
reaches a score of 10, the stack shows the time in seconds.  This is an 
added incentive for the student to try again.  I give two grades -- one 
for "beating" the game and one for being faster than a certain number 
of seconds.  I made about 25 such math stacks for this class.  I 
believe that the cover art does not show up on Windows machines as 
well.  Maybe I can fix these two problems this summer.

Download "Domain":  <http://aulasdigitales.net/MG_01.zip> (1.4 mb)

2.  ADgic 2004:  I was my school's Academic Decathlon coach until I 
changed schools this year.  This stack was developed as a collaborative 
project by my students in HyperStudio (the only multimedia authoring 
tool the school had), and then I went home and reprogrammed it into 
Revolution.  They based it on a kind of role-playing card game called 
Magic the Gathering which is popular with a Gothic subculture here.  It 
comes with a readme file, so I won't bore you with details about how to 
play it.  For the Academic Decathlon competitions, we have to know 
thousands of facts and concepts, including information on hundreds of 
people.  This stack is intended to get students to remember more and 
more facts about those persons we study.

Download "ADgic 2004":  <http://aulasdigitales.net/MG_02.zip> (9.3 mb)

	A higher percentage of my remedial students passed the state test than 
the school's average, which is pretty good since the class was filled 
with those who were failing either math or English class.  My Academic 
Decathlon team routinely beat some of the private parochial schools in 
the area.  I conclude therefore that these types of stacks were 
beneficial in raising student achievement.  And even if they weren't, 
they sure made the learning process a heck of a lot more fun!  : )

	Thanks to Alejandro Tejada for supplying the server space and for 
encouraging me to continue with my programming.

		Mark Greenberg