Games That Make You Smarter

AnnMaria De Mars

Daniel explaining game to students — Did you ever wonder how good high school hackers are in Latin America? The answer is that some of them are very, very good. Silabuz.com sponsored the first school hackathon in Chile. (And Strong Mind Studios helped.) This brought together over 60 students and teachers at Cowork Latam in Santiago […]

What’s a school hackathon in Latin America like?

November 23, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM by AnnMaria De Mars

Maria Paz meeting with teachers — I’m impressed. As a statistician, I realize that schools who agree to pilot new educational software are exceptional, but based on these exceptional schools I’ve visited, Chile has a bright future. I’m not one of those Americans who go to another country and immediately start bashing it because it’s different. […]

Schools lead Chile into a bright future

November 21, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Cranky old teacher with a stick — If you want to hear me rant, just ask me about why students aren’t learning math. We have technology! We have STEM programs! We have STEAM programs! Why the hell are our kids still so far behind? What we don’t have is a lot of actual math teaching When I […]

Math has numbers. Duh.

November 15, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Math by AnnMaria De Mars

Skyscrapers in Santiago — Living in Santiago has given me a whole new insight in what life is like for limited English speakers in the U.S. When your language proficiency is limited, so are your choices. When I first moved to Chile, I didn’t know any of the neighborhoods, how to use the metro, […]

Limited English Limits Your World

November 10, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

road through the trees in a rural area — For the past four years, I’ve been studying how technology does – or more often, doesn’t – work its way into rural schools. I’ve driven down dirt roads all over two countries, sat out snowstorms and followed directions to school buildings that read “Go past the dip in the road, […]

Do we want rural kids to succeed or not?

November 6, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / rural education by AnnMaria De Mars

Julia in Boston Common — “English Opens Doors” – I love that title “English opens doors” (or, in Spanish, “inglés abre puertas”) is a program in Chile that promotes learning English. I love their name because they really “get it”. Education is the key to a bigger, wider life. Normally, I write about teaching math . […]

Better English Opens Doors to a Better Future

October 31, 2018 in AnnMaria / Bilingual Education / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

kid on computer — I’m analyzing data from a study we did on effectiveness of our games in teaching math and the scores for the control groups are extremely depressing. They’re perfect control groups because they qualified for our study based on being a low income and our software was available to them for […]

How do I get you to care that your kids ...

October 30, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Math by AnnMaria De Mars

Judo students, AnnMaria and a stuffed llama — Many years ago I met a teenage girl who said she wanted to go to the Olympics . I had visited her club a few times, practiced with her and gave her a few tips about competing and training. One day, when I took off my judo gi after practice […]

I’m that kind of person: Another business lesson from judo

October 28, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Did you know that many cities have a popular event called “Fuck Up Nights”? That’s where entrepreneurs talk about their failures. The general idea is that there are problems with only studying success. One problem is that many people in the startup world suffer from depression. They are always hearing […]

Stupid Ideas I Have Had

October 26, 2018 in AnnMaria / Game Progress / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

I’m going to change this story slightly because I don’t want to call out a specific person when I have seen the same thing over and over from “STEM” or “STEAM” or “STREAM” programs. Generally, the more letters they have, the bigger problem it is. I agree with everything Ms. […]

We’re Totally Missing the Boat on Math Education

October 19, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Math by AnnMaria De Mars

Parenting Like I Know What I'm Doing — Maria and I have been told many times, “You guys should write a book on parenting!” So, we did. It is an ebook, 87 pages for $1.99 so less than 3 cents per page for brilliance like the following: BUY HERE: Get Parenting Like I Know What I’m Doing for […]

You should write a book on parenting

October 15, 2018 in AnnMaria / Parenting Like I Know What I'm Doing / Special Education by AnnMaria De Mars

Presenter at NIEA — I go to quite a few conferences but the National Indian Education Association is one of my favorites because they fit with my idea of how education should be. I go to mathematics conferences that are all about – you guessed it – mathematics, and technology conferences that are focused […]

It’s Indian Education – Why I Like the NIEA conference

October 11, 2018 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / Educational Games / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars