Tabula Digita Tournament Showcases GISD Math Students
Article Date: June 1, 2010
Garland ISD hosted its second-annual Tabula Digita Tournament Wednesday, May 12, inside the district’s Technology Center. Six middle schools and two elementary schools participated in the exciting competition which utilizes video games to emphasize mathematic instruction. Fifty-four total students competed in the math gaming competition.
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Each of the middle schools – Austin, Houston, Hudson, Jackson, Lyles & O’Banion – sent a team of 5 students to the event. Beaver & Watson Elementary – which serve as Math, Science & Technology centers within the GISD – sent 12 students.
This was the first year elementary students participated in the competition. Students from both elementary campuses are involved in their school’s Math Club. Two teams from each campus competed against each other and against members of the other school.
The middle school participants are selected from math lab programs, which focus on discovering new ways to motivate students who would not usually be excited about participating in a competition, specifically one that focuses on math.
The format of the competition was laid out in a brackets tournament style. Students rotated between labs at the Technology Center based on their standing at the end of each round.
“The excitement of the gaming in each lab was beyond words,” said Natalie Thomas, a middle school technology specialist for GISD.
“Upon entering the competition labs you found students who were cheering & strategizing while others were playing in complete silent concentration mode.
Students were gaming and engaged in problem solving as they worked their way through math problems in order to score points to lead their teams to victory.”
After the competition rounds in the computer labs, the students all moved into a large meeting room to see the semifinal and final rounds.
“You could hear and feel the energy of the students’ excitement throughout the Technology building,” Thomas said. “Students were yelling out their school mascots and cheering their peers on.”
The layout of the meeting room for the finals was optimized by the use of GISD technology resources.
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Students who earned their way into the final round were positioned at the front of the room, each on their own individual laptop. Competitors faced the audience while a big screen placed behind them allowed the audience to see their screen.
Tabula Digita CEO Nt Etuk and Vice-President Steven Hoy attended the event. Etuk was the emcee of the semifinals and finals. Afterward he joined in on the fun by competing against the MVPs of each campus – six middle school students and two elementary students.
Hayden Iske, a fourth-grader from Beaver MST, won the student competition versus Etuk.