The website a great website for practicing such essential math skills at fractions, computation, and coordinates.
The following are positive and negative reflections of :
Password: Students need their own password, which I believe changes frequently.
Choices: There are many choices on this page. To get the academic games first choose, ALL GAMES. Then scroll down to choose one of the games in the category of NUMBERS. Each game practices a specific skill. Teachers should investigate each game and make a note of the game name and the skill for future reference.
Ability to navigate: Students need to be shown how to select activities while on this website. They initially need to be given directions so that independently navigating this website in the future is easier.
Academic and Non-Academic Choices: Teachers need to monitor which activities the students are working on.
Game instructions: When you make an academic choice there are written directions but no verbal support. Students really need to read and understand the directions in order to achieve success. Teachers should really go over the game whole class before assigning a game.
Targeted skill was clear: Teachers and students can choose games based on the skill needing reinforcement.
Correct vs. Incorrect: Students are given a chart where they keep track of correct and incorrect responses.
Fun: The activities are fun and motivating. They keep the participant actively involved in the activity.
Chances to improve on targeted skill: Students are given a few chances to improve their ability.
Variety of skills: Students are given a wide variety of skills to choose from, like number facts, positive and negative integers, fractions, and geometry.
Choice: Students can choose what multiples they want to practice when playing certain games. Also, students can choose their own difficulty level.
Interactive: Students feel they are a part of the action.
Interesting graphics: The graphics on a page are big, bright, and clear. There isn’t too much going on during the game.
Motivating: The students are given compliments during each game.
Short games: Students work on a skill for a short amount of time then move on to something else, so they don’t get bored.
One example of a game on this website is “Guess the Number”. The player can choose the level of difficulty, from guessing between 1 and 5 to guessing between -100 and 100. Students can choose depending on their comfort level or teachers can choose according to their observations of student ability. Once the student is playing the game they are given clues that make them logically guess a number. With each guess the student should get closer. When a guess is given the computer says if it is too high or too low. Then the student needs to think about where they are on the number line and make another guess. This continues until the student has guessed the correct number or until the amount of guesses runs out. The computer also keeps track of the amount of guesses it took the student so it is a good challenge to guess the number in less chances the next time.
This game is great for number sense and using the number line. Students need to have a general knowledge of how numbers are ordered and how to move up and down the number line.