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Site Review: Mathletics

Site URL: Mathletics.com

Content:  Mathletics, a competition-based math site for students age 5-18, supplements classroom instruction by allowing students to compete internationally against their peers.

Design:  The site uses quite a bit of Flash, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While it can be tricky to maneuver through this type of technology, the animation does spur user engagement and activity. Mathletics’ navigation and user tools work well and require a minimal learning curve—an asset, considering the younger age of the typical user.

MathleticsReview: Mathletics is a tremendous resource, offering more than 1,000 learning activities as part of a curriculum tailored to the user’s home country. For example, in the U.S., students get online lessons and testing materials based on the Common Core State Standards. A student’s performance is tallied and then compared to the performance of students around the world.

Seeing one’s score relative to those of other students can be a motivator to improve. Accordingly, the site’s homepage prominently displays a leaderboard of the top 100 students. This leaderboard contains each student’s name, home country, total Mathletics score and school name. The results change in real time, so if a student registers new points to his or her tally, those figures instantly appear.

An annual license is available to schools (pricing can be obtained by contacting the company). Licenses are priced per student and can be purchased for whole classes, or for entire schools, at a discount. In addition, parents can buy an annual home subscription for $59 per student, with discounts available for sibling registrations.

Bottom Line:  For math teachers looking to inject a little competition into lessons (and maybe instill a bit of national pride), Mathletics is the place to go.

 

Article by Jason Tomaszewski, EducationWorld Associate Editor
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