WWP Part C- Mathletics

The third installment for my Wicked Problem project is..... Mathletics!
This tool has been purchased by our school for every student in it. I have used parts of it but I had not delved deeper into it until this project and I was completely surprised at the versatility it brought.
First of all there is a live Mathletics game that my students adore. When they play it it has several levels, level 1 starts out very easy (but I discovered I can turn off levels and push the kids beyond addition and subtraction!).
How does it work?
You can sign up your class, or school or as a family or individual. Then you get access as a teacher and can assign different lessons. The assignments always appear first on the students board. you can also create your own courses, so you can find all the lessons to begin your fractions unit so when you assign the students all the lessons are in one area. These courses are saved under a name of your choice so you can continue using them over the years.


What do I like about Mathletics:

• You can create groups for your students if you want to level them which is perfect for my class because I have some real high flyers.
• You can choose courses from all over the world, one day you might choose the Japanese curriculum and the next California which exposes the students to many different styles of teaching. I think the more styles and methods the students get, the more likely they are to find a way they understand.
• The students create their avatar and get points to purchase outfits, backgrounds, etc. This is great novelty for them and they really enjoy it.
• The Live Matheltics game is great, when the kids start playing there is a world map that moves around pointing to different countries, they are then paired with one or several students from anywhere in the world and they play against them. you should hear the shouts "I have a guy from South Africa!" I have a guy from Qatar!".
• There are a variety of reports that you can print for your students as well as certificates when they have high achievements.
• For each lesson the students do there are a variety of ways they can access help and there is always a movie with demonstration problems if they are stuck.
• They have lots of workbooks that can be printed out in pdf for extra work or reinforcement.
  

Some of the odd things:

• It is hard to get to know this program, there are tutorials but one has to mess around and play with it before you really get (and I am not exactly sure I am there yet!).
• The search engine for finding lessons can be clumsy.
• A few more standardized tests would be great for practice, i hate to teach to the test but getting kids used to testing is important.

In summation:

This is a wonderful program, the best I have seen so far. it has just about everything you need as a teacher and the positives are far more than the negatives. The students very much enjoyed their homework and I have very little accessing their results. This is an excellent tool to help reinforce mathematics,especially if the curriculum you are using is sparse.