Is my daughter actually doing algebra, even though she thinks she’s growing a dragon, or clearing a level, or playing a card game? She’s a bit like those tribespeople Wittgenstein writes about, whose stamps and shouts can be related, in a regular way, to moves in chess, but who have no conception that they are playing chess. Algebra turned into a card game is a nice case-in-point for the debate about formalism in mathematics. Belle was amazed to see our 9-year old ‘solve for x’, from a pretty snarly and complex starting point, in a dozen-or-so rapid and confident steps. In the screencap above you see some ‘night cards’ but also something that looks like a negated c. Gradually the cartoony stuff is pared back until kids are zipping through screens of stuff that looks a lot like plain old algebra (although, as far as we’ve gotten, the cartoon stuff has not fully disappeared). A black-and-purple ‘night’ version of a picture card will cancel the regular version out, removing both from play. Parentheses are bubbles that a few boxes may be suspended in. The x you are solving for is the box with its shy, peeking dragon that won’t grow until it’s ‘alone’ (everything needs to be moved to the other half of the screen). Everything gets introduced in a cartoony, pictorial, non-mathematical way. The second thing to say is that it raises kind of a funny issue in the philosophy of mathematics. The first thing to say is: gosh, my daughters now fight with each other about who gets to do algebra after breakfast, on the iPad, before school. You have ‘powers’ to transform and move and eliminate boxes in various ways (analogs of algebra stuff) and, periodically, you gain new ‘powers’ as you clear levels and your dragons grow. You have to isolate the ‘box’ (or card) so your dragon will grow. It’s just algebra, rewritten as a genuinely addictive solitaire-ish card game. (You can get it through iTunes and from other sources, I’m sure.) Via BoingBoing, I found the Holy Grail: Dragonbox. The Holy Grail is getting your kid hooked on something that is basically their homework. Educational apps for kids are supposed to be fun.
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