Title of Initiative / Project
MateFitness
Name of Organiser
Manuela Arata, Giovanni Filocamo e Giuseppe Rosolini
Start and ending date of the Initiative
2006
Was the initiative carried out in the framework of a funded project?
No
Type of deliverables
Online course, On-line Game, Didactical resource
Thematic area
Maths, Physics, Science
Language of the deliverable
Italian, English
Target Group
Teachers, Students
Description of the initiative
Matefitness is a project that aims to promote mathematics through the game and the interdisciplinary approach.
It is possible to choose between experiments, riddles, magic games, puzzles, logic and more. There are also mathematical content.
Professors can propose activities to their students, share trivia, insights and materials, and find up to date ideas.
MathFitness is a project of CNR, active since April 2006 and based in Genova, in collaboration with Università di Genova, the Cultural Foundation Palazzo Ducale and the Genoa Science Festival.
Its goal is to bring the public closer to mathematics through entertainment and it operates at a national level by planning and organizing recreative, didactic and formative events of creative dissemination of mathematics, collaborating with schools, associations, and public boards.
Math is the base for technological improvement: in the digital world, we cannot dispense with math, in research and in everyday life.
Math is also critical in the students' choice for their formative path.
MathFitness proposes a new way of looking at math, interesting and involving for people of every age with fun.
With math we can play and playing we can learn.
The mission of the initiative is to spread education of mathematics in its widest sense: a tool in one's own hands to solve problems.
Another mission is also to present mathematics to school students and to the general public in a new way, not just as a school subject, but something linked to creativity, curiosity, and fun.
The mission of the initiative it is also to create a market offer to match math school didactics, suitable also for the public and for companies.
The objective of the initiative is to create a space where problems, solutions, doubts, games, creativity are encouraged with no time limit.
The goal of the initiative is to give concrete support to the school didactics of mathematics and to manage didactics in a negotiated manner, integrating scientific explanation and teaching.
The objective of the initiative is to create spaces and occasions for edutainment and alternative didactic purposes.
Teachers’ Opinion
Teacher P.F.
Strengths and weakness:
The review of this portal takes much time. The first impression is positive and the users are engaged and amused by the games. Unfortunately, the solutions are not available. For example, I spent much time for La serie pazzesca. I did not manage to solve it and I would need the solution!
All in all, this portal seems no more than a review of mathematic questions. It does not help to build up a curriculum on Maths.
A teacher can use this portal to find interesting exercises in order to introduce a new topic in class. In addition, a teacher can suggest this portal to the pupils as an educational alternative to videogames!
As far as the Physics is concerned, the contents are irrelevant (for the refraction they are even epistemologically wrong: how can you take the law of the refraction simply putting a straw into the water? It is an infantile and fake inductivism).
The portal should avoid the use of the word “magic” (in “indovina numeri”).
The choice to colour all in red is not aesthetically appealing.
In addition, there are also grammatical error (e.s. “qual’è”)
Potential exploitation in class
The teacher can select some exercises in order to introduce a new topic in class, but there are no multimedia contents or additional activities.
There are almost exclusively mathematic problem on the written form, only few designs or illustrations or diagrams. Actually, there is not difference if I read a text from a traditional blackboard, a book or on a tablet or pc screen.
Teacher A.L.
This website offers interesting hints to explain mathematic topics in an innovative and funny way. It gathers a list of problems and enigmas (grouped by level of difficulty and combined with additional descriptions and further information). The solution of the exercises is with fee and restricted to specific timetable that discourages the pupils. They should “attend” the math-gym only during the weekend.
The organisation of recreational initiatives and events may be interesting both in order to involve the less motivated pupils and for being rewarding with the most capable ones.
Students’ Opinion
The pupils do not approve this website. They are attract by mathematic questions that “do not look like Mathematics”, but they need prompt and clear answers to the doubts and the problems they encounter studying whatever topic.
The pupils “do not understand why they need the registration only to access to a more detailed description of a topic”. They understand even less “why they have to subscribe and, even worse, to wait the weekend in order to receive the full explanation”.
Apart from all the topics they can find on this portal, the pupils refers that “it is senseless to work during the weekend if you need a review or a practical exercises for an in class test during the week”.
Comments on this Relevant initiatives
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Date: 2015.02.16
Posted by Māra (latvia)
The material seem nice , but there is no possibity to see them.
