NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hundreds of middle school students will demonstrate their enthusiasm for Mathematics tomorrow as New York City public schools hold the first-ever citywide Math video game tournament.
The event, sponsored by Tabula Digita's Dimension immersive video game software and co-hosted by the New York City Department of Education, will be held at Columbia University's Alfred Lerner Hall at West 115th Street and Broadway, on Fri., Dec. 14, from 10:00 AM - Noon. The Multiplayer Educational Game (MEG) event will feature 30 student gamers, representing middle schools across all five boroughs of New York City, with over 500 classmates cheering them on.
"Educational video games are an exciting new resource for educators looking for ways to supplement conventional instruction," said Ntiedo Etuk, chief executive officer and co-founder of Tabula Digita and alumnus of Columbia Business School. "New York City Public Schools clearly understands that Technology offers an innovative way to engage and excite students about learning, and teaches them concepts they previously found difficult or even boring. The DimensionM educational video games not only make math interesting, they make it cool."
During the energy-packed competition, students will go head-to-head using their math skills to advance through timed video games. To move ahead, and ultimately win the tournament, students will have to navigate through numerous mathematical obstacles, and compete with their fellow students, to score points.
"There is an increasing body of evidence showing that game-based learning is an effective teaching and learning tool for today's digitally-advanced students," said Troy Fisher, Director of the Department of Instructional Technology in New York City Public Schools. "We wanted to be on the leading edge of those schools harnessing the power of immersive educational technology to drive student achievement in the classroom."
In the weeks leading up to the tournament, students have been busily learning and mastering math concepts such as proportions, number lines, and adding and subtracting integers. All concepts used in the game are aligned with New York State standards for Mathematics. The 3-D virtual world gains and keeps their attention by incorporating challenge, control, curiosity, collaboration, and competition -- key elements that have been proven to drive engagement and improve academic achievement.
"As educators, we know the bottom line has to be student achievement when it comes to investing in educational technology-based products," said Fisher. "This gaming format provides an obvious advantage; an immediate need-to-know the math environment which we believe will have a positive impact on improving test scores."
Tabula Digita's Dimension product series offers two additional titles: Dimenxian Algebra I and Evolver Pre-Algebra Single Player. All of the games content comes aligned to standards set by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. For more information, please go to www.DimensionM.com.
About New York City Schools
This initiative is being spearheaded by the Office of Instructional Technology, New York City Department of Education. The New York City public school system forms the largest system in the United States serving over 1.1 million students in more than 1,400 separate schools across all five boroughs of New York City.
About Tabula Digita
Tabula Digita is an educational video game company focused on delivering innovative and effective educational games to students and institutions. Through its fusion of education and technology-based immersive learning systems, Tabula Digita successfully offers standards-based, high impact educational tools that engage middle and high school students in learning and applying pre-algebra and algebra I concepts.
In 2006 Tabula Digita received the Macworld Editor's Choice award. This year the company received the prestigious Newcomer of the Year CODiE Award from the Software Industry Information Association (SIIA), recognized for offering a product that has the potential for significant impact on students and teachers. Tabula Digita was founded in Manhattan's Silicon Alley in 2003 and is the brainchild of entrepreneur Ntiedo Etuk and award-winning electronic game designer Robert Clegg. For more information, please call 1-888-9-Tabula or 1-888-982-2852, or visit www.DimensionM.com.
