Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Mathletics Web Based Math Learning Program

TOS Crew Review

Product: Mathletics

Publisher: 3P Learning

Price: Annual Student Subscription = (was $99) now $59.00 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week access)

*I received this product from this company (for free), for the purpose of sharing my opinion.*

This is a computer / web-based Math program. Students sign-in and get right to work. They play math games, do activities, compete with other students and “shop” in the store.

Mathletics is used in 5,000 schools. According to the website, there are over 1,000,000 students using this. Here are some fast facts from the website:

1. Mathletics is "the next generation in learning."
2. "Step-by-step animated support is like having a teacher 24 hours a day!"
3. There are more than 750 learning activities. It covers all aspects of Mathematics.

Our Experience: 

Amy (14) was the first to use this. She taught us all how to play. Basically, here is what she did:

1. Every time she completed an activity, she would earn points. These points increased over a period of one week before they reset back to zero. She received certificates (which I proudly printed out) to show her achievements. But there is more to the points…… Students with the highest scores made it to the “Top 100 Student list” worldwide!! This was Amy’s goal. It seemed like these numbers changed almost daily. At one point, it was anywhere from 11,000 to 48,000. We soon realized it would take a number of hours on the program to earn this kind of status. However, we were very excited to see that one of our TOS Crew Reviewer Moms had a child who actually made it on the Top Student list. We were so excited for her, and even got to see her name on the list. This is pretty amazing considering there are thousands of students, at any one time, using the program.

2. There are specific activities to accomplish in order to earn a gold bar. The student learns many concepts in different math levels, depending on what grade you (as the parent) choose to put your child in. Once the gold bar is completed, you can then move your student up to the next level so they will have a whole new set of material to work on. If your child doesn’t know what to do, there is a question- mark icon to help explain the problem.

3. There are colorful, cartoon type illustrations which we all loved.

4. There is a cafĂ©/ store, where you can spend your “credits.” Credits are earned after completing activities or in competitions (more on that later). Amy LOVED shopping in the store. She was able to change her “character’s” hair, clothes, background and even got some sunglasses.

5. The Competition…… This is the big thing…… When Amy clicked on this by accident (for the first time), she absolutely panicked… I was in another room and she came racing to find me. “Mom!!” She yelled, “Help! They have me playing against a bunch of other kids! Get me out of this!” I helped her close it out.
She really didn’t understand what was going on. …. I waited another day and just let her do the other activities. John (12) was the one who first did the competitions. Once I watched how it worked, I was able to help Amy through it. After a few tries with her, she was happy to do it on her own.

Before I describe a little about John’s experience, I want to mention one more thing about Amy. For the past several weeks, her only math has been on the computer. Yesterday, I finally put her back on her old Math workbook. She sat down and started doing some problems. Then looked at her answer and said, “I am waiting for it to tell me I got it wrong.” (smiles). This is what amazed me. With Matheletics, she got INSTANT feedback which was wonderful.

John’s experience:

John absolutely loves this. He has dyslexia and takes a little longer to learn. So I let him work on this early in the morning before anyone else woke up. He didn’t need the distraction of everyone around him. Here is what happened when he did the competition:

When the screen comes up, we see John’s “character” on the left side of the screen. Then a world map shows up with an icon going around the screen as if it were searching for other players. Next, anywhere from one to three more students appear (as characters) to compete with him. It shows their name and country. John was competing with students from Canada, USA, Australia and Britain.

There was a problem at first for John…. When the questions started to come up, he got very upset thinking he could not handle the pressure. The students are given 60 seconds to quickly answer the problems. Whoever finishes first, without getting three wrong, wins! So, of course he panicked.

Here is what we did:

1. I told him that the other children were panicking too. We watched as some students immediately left the game. I told him, they had “bailed.” They were probably afraid to do the problems.

2. Some students worked too fast. It seemed like they were winning, but they started getting wrong answers and then just struck out.

He started to understand that ALL children go through fear in math, and in competitions.  He really felt relieved. Because of this, he has learned to take his time working through problems, and let speed come later. He has made phenomenal progress and has even won many of the competitions.

John has done so many of the math activities that he actually completed an entire grade level!! I am so proud of him!

Can you tell I love this program?

To find out more about my reviews, please visit "Introduction to our Homeschool Parlor"

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

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