Games That Make You Smarter

AnnMaria

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

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from July 15, 2012 on “Tinkerbell visits The Julia Group” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. My father passed away about 18 months ago. We hadn’t spoken much of the past […]

Throwback Thursday: The Comfort of the Lives We Have Made

January 8, 2015 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday tagged Dr. AnnMaria De Mars / Throwback Thursday by AnnMaria De Mars

teachers — Steve Blank talks about the mistake that led him to lose $35 million – not having gamers as co-founders in a gaming company. HE emphasizes the importance of having the right people on your team, including the ones who truly understand the product that you are building. He says, “To […]

Why Ed Tech Companies NEED Teachers

January 7, 2015 in AnnMaria / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

Math Example — What do number sense and professional or Olympic athletes have in common? If you watch a truly gifted athlete you will see that they seem to have a sixth sense about their sport. They see things other people don’t. Wayne Gretzky was such a great hockey player because while others […]

Number Sense and Elite Athletes

January 6, 2015 in AnnMaria / Educational Games / Math by AnnMaria De Mars

book — 2015 is going to be a great year, I can feel it. One post isn’t going to be enough to get in all of my resolutions for the new year. Staff at the Ferguson Library tweeted the question, “What are your literary resolutions?” My literary resolution is to read a programming […]

My Literary Resolutions

December 31, 2014 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

Girl about to set off on path — Five hundred years ago, the Ojibwe people picked up everything they owned and walked half-way across the continent. No one really knows why. There is no written history of this event. I remember the precise moment I first heard about it. I was talking to Debbie Gourneau, from Turtle Mountain, […]

It starts with a good story ….

December 29, 2014 in AnnMaria / Educational Games / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

coding — In my early twenties, I was working at Fortune 50 company and happened to be on the same flight with one of the senior vice-presidents. They had over-booked first class, so he got bumped and ended up sitting next to me. Never one to miss an opportunity, I asked him […]

My Every Day of Code

December 18, 2014 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

woods — If you have never experienced the pleasure of having an idea that won’t leave you alone turn into reality, well, you have my sympathy. Today was the first day of working on our newest game. It’s so new it doesn’t have a name yet. We are going with a working […]

Every project has a first minute

December 17, 2014 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Unicorn — Making math awesome is harder than it looks. Before anyone jumps in to tell me that I have a charmed life, let me admit that I know that. I get to work with brilliant developers and designers, gifted and dedicated teachers and bright, fun kids. I get to do it all […]

It’s not all unicorns in start-up world

December 4, 2014 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

girl picking flowers in meadow — They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. So, I thought today I would show you how Fish Lake is progressing from the alpha version to a soon-to-be-released beta version. This is what our Fish Lake start page was. And this is what it will be after I finish […]

Two pictures are worth 2,000 words: Progress on Fish ...

November 29, 2014 in AnnMaria / Dog food / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

7GenBanner — These are comments from actual educators. I’m a vegan. I could never buy a game that has shooting deer in it. Couldn’t you have the Indians make friends with the deer instead? We could never use your game in our school because it involves shooting animals. We could never […]

Don’t Know Much About History … (Or, why our games ...

November 25, 2014 in AnnMaria / Cultural content by AnnMaria De Mars

7 Generation Games Blog — “Why do you care about math so much?” As a volunteer, I spend a lot of time with middle school and high school students, and this is the question I get asked the second most often. (The most common question I get is “What is the hardest part about […]

Why Do You Care About Math So Much?

November 19, 2014 in AnnMaria / Math by AnnMaria De Mars

7GenBanner — University statistics courses – I’m not just an employee, I’m a customer! (I bet none of you remember that Hair Club for Men commercial and don’t get that reference. That’s okay, I amused myself.) In my spare time, of which I have none, I teach a statistics course once or […]

A Tale of Two Statistics Professors

November 18, 2014 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM by AnnMaria De Mars