Educational

Published on: May 12, 2011

Scary Quote of the Day

“American eighth-graders score 66 points below their Japanese counterparts in math, yet almost 40 percent of American children think they’re good in math. That figure for Japan is 4 percent. “This comes from an editorial by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. He’s mixing together studies and does not explain what 66 points even means (is a 1% or 20% difference?). But, still, you get the point.

Published on: May 9, 2011

Analogies for iPad: A Vote for This Flawed App

By Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Analogies for Kids is an educational iPad app that has a premise I love. It is a quiz that lets kids practice both verbal and geometrical analogies. It is extremely low tech but the questions are just great and I think they really help cultivate young minds. My dream is that one day there are hundreds of iPad analogy apps out there and I’m buying the very best ones available.That is not, however, where we are now. This app has a very limited number of questions, so few that they often repeat frequently even in a 20 question test. Ultimately, your kids remember the answers and stop doing the analogies.

So you can only really only whip this game out for a few days. Would I recommend this incredibly flawed game? Absolutely. Because there is nothing else like this out there. So it is a weapon worth having for 99 cents. I don’t think it is even a close call. If you get just 30 minutes out of it, I still think it is a worthwhile investment. I just wish they would put out a more advanced version of the game and put on more questions (or just update the that is already out).This app is made by Nth Fusion LLC which has developed other educational iPad apps that we own that I will be writing about in the future.

Published on: May 3, 2011

Undersea Math

By Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Undersea Math

Undersea Math is another math low budget, under the radar educational iPad math app that my kids – particularly my daughter – consistently use.

The premise is very simple. You fill in the answer to the math problem on a little pretend wood puzzle and continue to solve math problems until the whole puzzle is revealed. It is hard to describe but you can look at the picture and get a feel for it. In this image, the last puzzle piece is being selected.

Published on: April 14, 2011

Third Grade Math iPad App

By Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

triangle My son and I are working on Third Grade Math, an iPad math app by 965 Studios.

I have a lot of 965 Studios educational iPad apps, three vocabulary word apps that we use all of the time that have a similar look and layout as the Third Grade Math app. It also has more apps for each grade up to 7th.

I have played Third Grade Math about three times now. We have had it three days. So, obviously, I like it. They have a really good variety of math problems and they have a lot of mathematical thinking problems I did not conjure up on my own.