AnnMaria De Mars

Native American dancers at EPICS conference — I think all special education needs more math, but today I’m at the Native American special education conference, EPICS, so let’s talk about that. It’s a good conference, not least of all for the entertainment, and I’m already planning to come back next year. I went to some good sessions […]

Native American Special Education Needs More Math

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

We’re friends, right? Let’s have a little heart to heart, shall we? We like you, you like us. Life is pretty good, overall. However, there’s one teeny issue. We have 11,000 kids playing our games and we know that is a tiny fraction of the kids who can benefit. Our […]

Share this blog!

20 Sep, 2018 in 7GenGames / AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Resources / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

Video from demo day presentation — Life has really taken an unexpected turn lately. If you follow this blog you know that I have been in Chile since February, making bilingual games that teach math and history. It’s been a great experience, but we also have a U.S. company in which I’m a co-founder, so as […]

An entire country bet on you

17 Sep, 2018 in Education: Innovation and STEM / Start-up Diaries / Women in Tech by AnnMaria De Mars

You might be wondering how a study on teaching math in Japan led me to change how I make bilingual math games in Spanish and English. Alright, well, to be honest, you probably weren’t wondering about that at all, were you? You were probably thinking about if you need to […]

Teaching math in Japan, in Spanish or English

15 Sep, 2018 in AnnMaria / Bilingual Education / Educational Resources / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

Choice screen with option of números and sociedad — If you actually ARE a bilingual teacher, you may already know what I’m going to say. In that case, read on to nod in agreement and feel superior. For me, this was one of the many things about education that only seemed obvious after I learned it. Our software was […]

Why Bilingual Teachers Need Our Bilingual Software

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

We are working on a new game, set on an American Indian reservation, What’s my name? Crossroads, and we have a female character named, Jessie and a male character named ? He is supposed to be from a tribe in the Great Plains and live on or near the reservation. […]

Name this guy!

10 Sep, 2018 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

Atacama desert — How do you say it? I asked Maria Paz. Decepcionado, She answered . ‘Huh, I would have guessed that meant “deceptive”. So, it means “disappointed”. Well, that’s how I feel , “decpcionado”. I’ve been in Chile for 7 months and I don’t feel as if my life has changed much […]

Start-up Diaries: You can’t change overnight

4 Sep, 2018 in Uncategorized by AnnMaria De Mars

Math or death — In nearly 30 years teaching and consulting on American Indian reservations, I’ve seen a dismaying number of failures to provide a good education. In the movie, Mask, the mother of a boy with a noticeable physical disfigurement is trying to register him for middle school. The principal says, Perhaps a […]

Failing Native American students: Let me count the ways

25 Aug, 2018 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars

trail on top of a mountain — A lot of people say they are a workaholic but they actually work for half an hour, check Facebook for half an hour, work for another half-hour, fix themselves a snack, and so on. Their 12- 14 hour work day is more like a 6 or 7 hours of actual […]

Testing a theory that you don’t have to die at ...

18 Aug, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

words activities from Making Camp Premium — What do grammar fixes in our games and not swearing at your students have in common? Now, you, Ms. or Mr. 5th Grade Teacher, have probably never even considered telling Emma or Devon or D’emery that you are going to skin them alive and send the hides home to their […]

Because Details Matter: 100 little tweaks and not swearing at ...

16 Aug, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

road outside of Tomé — You’d certainly hope after seven months in Chile I would have learned something, right? In fact, I think I’ve gained both professionally and personally. Life is lived forwards but understood backwards. For example, I never knew when I was training for the world championships that it would prepare me for […]

What did I learn in Chile?

8 Aug, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Here’s the vicious circle, few people like to do things they do very poorly, but it takes practice to get good which they don’t want to do because they are bad at math/ English/ violin/ whatever. It’s amazing that anyone learns anything, isn’t it? We can learn a lot about […]

Helping kids like school: There’s an app for that

5 Aug, 2018 in 7GenGames / AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Games / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars