Not happy...
A few schools in my district have been asked to pilot a new Math Game/Learning website. Teachers have gone through a bit of training and our students are working on the website fairly regularly. Guess what? Shhhhhh....don't tell anyone but, I don't like it! There are many reasons actually, but the two main reasons are after the "honeymoon phase" is over, the kids don't engage. They get on the website and click around, but they do not actually ENGAGE in the learning. This particular website was supposed to make learning math so much fun, that the students "wouldn't even know they were learning". Well, when I run a usage report at the end of our 20-minute work time and a 1/3 of my students are showing ZERO minutes engaged on the report because they are just clicking around...that's proof that the website is not doing its job. And that 1/3 of my class is a pretty heterogenous group...highs, mediums and lows. This has happened MANY times, and the kids are on the correct website because I've gone over to see why they are not "showing up" on my report. If I have fuss at the kids to "get to work" on a website that is supposed to make learning "fun" then that website is not for us!
Another reason I have issues with this math website is that the skills do not transfer. The look of the website is very "cutesy" and looks a bit like a Las Vegas version of Club Penguin. Lots of sounds, animations, bells, whistles and froo-froo. In my opinion, my third graders need REAL math skills practice, with instant feedback on how they are doing with a minimal amount of practice time.
Another reason I have issues with this math website is that the skills do not transfer. The look of the website is very "cutesy" and looks a bit like a Las Vegas version of Club Penguin. Lots of sounds, animations, bells, whistles and froo-froo. In my opinion, my third graders need REAL math skills practice, with instant feedback on how they are doing with a minimal amount of practice time.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT an educational researcher!
So, being dissatisfied with the website that my district is piloting, I decided to strike out on my own and look for other math websites to compare. Boy, did I find websites! If you looked at the GiF at the top of this post, I'm sure you noticed how many hits I got when I searched for Math Learning Websites...over 28,000,000!
There are some really great websites out there, many of them free or super cheap. The one I discovered and really like is called IXL.com. They have a 30-day free trial that you can sign up for. The platform is VERY clean and the students can get instant feedback on their progress. (In the annotated screenshot below, the students' view would not have all the red boxes.)
There are some really great websites out there, many of them free or super cheap. The one I discovered and really like is called IXL.com. They have a 30-day free trial that you can sign up for. The platform is VERY clean and the students can get instant feedback on their progress. (In the annotated screenshot below, the students' view would not have all the red boxes.)
One step further...
As I began to have my students explore different Math websites; I started thinking, "Which website would my students CHOOSE to work on?". And so, my experiment began! I gave my students about 20 minutes each morning to work on a website of their choice (I put a list on the white board of about 6 different sites) and while they were working, I went around and tallied their choices. As I continued to do this over the course of about 2 months, a clear pattern emerged. My third graders were consistently choosing other websites far more than the website my district is piloting.
More experimentation...
By now, my curiosity was skyrocketing! What if I split my class in half and had one half work on the website my district was piloting and the other half work on IXL? That's exactly what I did! I chose a math standard that both websites covered, split my class and gave them approximately 30-ish minutes to work. I then made two separate but identical Google form quizzes (one form for the piloted website group and the other for IXL group) that had questions similar to what the kids were practicing on the two websites. I also included a "real world" question where the students had to complete a multi-step problem and explain how they got their answer. Now just so you know, neither website had this kind of "real world" practice; but since we are working with CCSS, I felt I needed to include it. I wanted to see if there was a difference in the groups being able to apply what they practiced. To be quite honest, I wasn't expecting any real difference in how the groups performed on my quiz.
...and the envelope, please!
Interesting, huh? I was quite surprised to see such a noticeable difference in the two groups! Below are the results of the "real world" question on my quiz. Again, I was surprised to see the difference. (The correct answer for the question below is "yes".)
Variety Is The Spice of Life, as they say.
My point is, don't be satisfied with one choice when it comes to learning websites. Don't settle on the first website you find or even the website your district is telling you to use! Try out as many as you can before you commit. And like that song from the '70s that goes something like, "If you like pina coladas, gettin' caught in the rain. If you're not into health food, if you have half a brain..." you might find that you'll fall back in love with a website that you have always used. But at least, you'll have "played the field" and checked out all of your options!
Just to clarify again, I am not an educational researcher. These opinions are completely my own and I am not even saying to go out and use the website I talked about in this post. Do your own "research". Make your own decisions based on what is best for YOUR students! Experiment!