Moving middle-schoolers with dance game

Stacy Cho is the sort of teacher who, after a day convincing middle-schoolers that math is cool, goes home to work on her national teaching certification and her administrator's credential, plays "Rock Band" with her husband on their Xbox 360 and then wakes up in the middle of the night with a great idea to get her students up and moving.

"I'm known as having a lot of energy," Cho said.

For that middle-of-the-night idea — an interactive, virtual dance game — Cho won the $75,000 first prize in a global contest sponsored by HopeLab, a nonprofit seeking ways to increase physical activity among middle-school-aged kids. The group hopes to develop a prototype of the game by the end of the year and then explore whether it can be commercially developed and marketed.

With childhood obesity on the rise, and middle school a time when many children become less active, Cho envisions "Dancing Craze" as something of a cross between "Dance Dance Revolution," a dance video game that uses an electronic mat that directs dance steps synchronized to a video dancer, and the Nintendo Wii, which captures motion and speed through a hand-held sensor and translates those movements onto a screen.

"They're still so creative at this age," she said, "and their sense of themselves is still forming. Let them move their bodies and create a virtual character who dances to their movements and their music and looks like whoever they're feeling like that day."

Cho, 30, already tries to incorporate movement into her classes. She posts review questions around the room so students have to walk around to read them. She has them demonstrate angles and the axis of graphs with their arms. They review for tests standing up and earn extra points playing "trashketball" — throwing wadded-up paper into a wastebasket across the room.

"Dancing Craze" isn't math-related, but movement is part of the school's pursuit of healthier lives for its students. Islander Middle School on Mercer Island is adding health classes at the sixth and eighth grades and has removed fried foods and pop machines from the cafeteria. At lunch, students play foosball and even "Dance Dance Revolution."

Cho grew up in Cincinnati and attended Emory University in Atlanta where she majored in math. She remembers the day when an actuary and then a biostatistician spoke to her class, as examples of what students could do with their math degrees.

"I couldn't believe it. Those were my options? I need that interaction with people every day," she said.

After earning a master's degree in math education, she taught high school in Georgia for three years. Cho's husband's job brought them to Seattle. She taught math at Mercer Island High School for the past four years.

At Islander Middle School, she teaches one math class and works as an administrative intern. Next year she hopes to land an assistant-principal job.

Cho said she loves middle-school students because they are still finding out who they are and what they can become.

"We can still shape who they're going to be," she said.

Cho was flown to San Francisco on Monday for the awards ceremony. The panel of judges included middle-school students.

Her students are as excited about her game idea as she is.

Blake Wright, 13, said he likes to dance but doesn't really "like to let other people know." He also noted that it's possible to cheat with a Wii sensor, just flicking a wrist or swirling a hand, instead of actually Hula Hooping or taking a golf swing.

So many video games don't demand activity from kids, but Cho's might keep kids from sitting around, he said.

If her "Dancing Craze" idea is developed and marketed, Cho said she'll be buying some for the school.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com