Games That Make You Smarter

AnnMaria

This category is for posts written by Dr. AnnMaria De Mars.

The last two posts I wrote about Chile in general and my neighborhood (Lastarria). Today, let’s get into the reason that I’m actually here – Startup Chile. Getting to the point, I’ve been here less than a week and already Startup Chile is amazing! Unlike some accelerators where people are […]

Santiago Edition, Episode 4: Startup Chile is amazing!

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

I am a bit embarrassed to say this but someone “improved” our teacher resources pages a while back and the results were, well see for yourself. Even worse, this page, and more like it, were around for a while before I caught the problem. (Keep reading, it does get better.) […]

Teachers aren’t stupid but they ARE busy

February 6, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars

building and fountain in park next door — In the last post, I wrote a little about Chile in general. On Sunday, unbelievably, I took the day off. A mentor of mine gave me some good advice. He’s in his seventies and has been quite successful in business. He said, At my age, and you are getting up […]

Startup Diaries: AnnMaria’s day off in Santiago

February 5, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

If you didn’t know, now you know. I’m in Santiago as part of Startup Chile, where I will be expanding our line of bilingual games for the Latin American market. Welcome to the Startup Diaries: Santiago Edition as I chronicle my experiences scaling up internationally. I made it to […]

Startup Diaries, Santiago Edition: I made it!

February 4, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Having a favorite game is not like having a favorite child. It’s okay, really. The favorite game, not the favorite child. Forgotten Trail makes me think of a lot of kids I have met – and of me, as a kid. The world is full of people who are not […]

Why Forgotten Trail is my favorite game

February 1, 2018 in AnnMaria / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post by Dr. AnnMaria De Mars from January 30, 2014 “Don’t Be Defined by Other People” that we wanted to share in case you missed it the first time around. My last post, I argued against “blooming where you’re planted”. If you don’t […]

Throwback Thursday: Don’t Be Defined by Other People

February 1, 2018 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday tagged AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday by Diana Sanchez

consulate of Chile — Santiago, Chile In six days, I’ll be on a flight to Santiago. I picked up my visa at the Consulate of Chile this week and I’m good to go. I’ll be working on a game modeled on our best-selling title, Making Camp. (Not sure if “best-selling” is the right word, […]

Disrupting Ageism (and Education) in Chile

January 28, 2018 in AnnMaria / Educational Games / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Google scholar badge — I applied for the Grow with Google Scholarship because I’ve forgotten more programming than a lot of people know. That’s just my problem, though, I’ve forgotten things. While the last time I coded an array in JavaScript was last week, it’s been at least a couple of years since I […]

Why Grow with Google When I’ve Forgotten More Programming than ...

January 25, 2018 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

jaguar in jungle with text asking what happened to the other 2 students — If you want to see everyone in our office roll on the floor laughing simultaneously, come in and tell us that you have an idea for an educational game but you need us to promise we won’t steal it before you tell us what it is. You clearly have zero […]

How hard is teaching math? Let me count the ways.

January 24, 2018 in AnnMaria / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

Eva wearing her shades and drinking a Roy Rogers — First of all, I want to say I was wrong when, years ago, I said our American students were not that bad at math. I based this incorrect statement on: The fact that rankings on standardized tests are ordinal. So, just like the person who comes in 14th in the […]

Why you (and your kids) still suck at math: Part ...

January 22, 2018 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM by AnnMaria De Mars

Before you get all up in arms, we are keeping the interns we have, but we don’t have the budget for any more at the moment. However, we have work that needs to be done, particularly in sales and marketing. I talked to a few of our investors recently and […]

The Debate: Unpaid Interns or No Interns ?

January 14, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

annmaria in snow — One of the opening lines of a game we have in prototype, Crossroads, is It’s pretty crazy around here … Unlike that story, though, things have been crazy good. Warning: This is going to sound like one of those annoying Christmas letters. You know the ones, Janey cured cancer right […]

It’s pretty crazy around here …

January 13, 2018 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars