Metal Gear, 1987
The much-anticipated PS3 game, Metal Gear Solid 4, was released last month. Justified by the stunning visual and audio sophistication, memorable plot, and innovative elements, it has generated a lot of media buzz and 3 million sales. It doesn't require much explanation when its screenshot is placed with one from the 1987 original Metal Gear to illustrate how far the gaming industry has come.
Geometry Education at 1986
Geometry Education at 2007
Perhaps generating conjectures in geometry, proving them, or providing counterexamples will never be as interesting as infiltrating a futuristic battleship to stop it from destroying a supercomputer on the orbit with a railgun. However, this fact wouldn't help a teenager with a PS3 setting in the bedroom to get more motivated to study geometry, and there are certainly ways to make study interesting. How about setting up some online competitions with real cash prizes for winners, where students get points for hypotheses, proves, and counterexamples? In case you wonder whether this is possible, there are similar systems for programming (ex. TopCoder), and
(To be cont'd...)
