Maths-Whizz Testers Needed!
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Better than the maths CD’s of old
In my previous post, I asked the question “Online Maths Programs – Is It Time to Ditch Your Maths Workbooks?” and gave a brief overview of 7 popular online maths programs. I’m not ditching my children’s maths workbooks just yet, but the few programs I’ve looked at so far have shown that computer based maths learning has moved on significantly from the $30 CD’s my children used just a few years ago.
Maths-Whizz Test Driven
Last month, my son and I tested the online maths education program Maths-Whizz. Maths-Whizz provides an online maths program for a monthly subscription of £19.99/$25, with different versions for US and UK customers.
Watch the video below and find out the Maths Insider verdict!
What I said on the video
The transcription of the video:
Welcome to Maths Insider. Today I’m going to review Maths-Whizz. Maths-Whizz is an online maths program for children aged between 5 and 13 years old, and they have websites for the UK and the US. In the UK it costs £15 per month (the price is now £19.99), or £100 (now £149) for a whole year’s subscription. My first impression of Maths-Whizz is that this is a serious online maths program. Not only does it provide interesting, interactive lessons for the children, but also plenty of information and data so that parents can easily monitor their child’s progress.
When your child signs up, they’re given an assessment, which will work out their maths age. It gives an overall maths age as well as a maths age for each of the topics in the curriculum. The lessons are presented in an interesting way using bright colors and cartoon graphics. But this isn’t a Playstation experience. However, it is literally like having your own maths tutor inside your computer. At each stage in the lesson, your child needs to fill in the answers in the examples to check that they understand the work, and they can go backwards or forwards during the lesson to make sure they understand.
After the lesson, your child answers ten exercise questions followed by a test. The test results are used to determine their understanding, as well as to give them an updated maths age. As I said before, the graphics are good. Just about good enough to keep your child interested, but not so good that your child will be distracted, and there’s hardly any music in the program. But Maths-Whizz has an interesting way of keeping your child engaged.
Your child gets a Maths-Whizz bedroom that they can decorate and they can buy things for, and they have to look after their plant. In order to buy things, they earn credits on exercises and tests. Actually, one day my son got quite annoyed because after he’d spent 1200 credits buying a kitchen, he then found out the next day there was a baby dragon for sale, but he’s already spent most of his credits. So he was actually incentivized to earn more credits in order to get the baby dragon. These pets that you buy, you also have to buy pet food for them. So actually, your child’s getting a mini economics lesson as well as a maths lesson. Your child can also use credits to purchase computer games that they can use inside the Maths-Whizz program. My son thought these were okay, but not worth the 45 credit asking price.
So let me show you a bit more about the parenting reports that are produced by Maths-Whizz. As you can see, my child’s maths age increased at different rates for different topics as you work through the exercises and you can see, also how much of each of the exercises in each topic has been completed already. There’s also a written report. This written report lists the maths age for each of the topics, and also explains how many exercises have been completed.
One criticism of Maths Whizz is that the students can’t access the lessons once they’ve started the exercise. Although, there is a topic bank where students can go and study the lesson outside of the exercise or lesson time. They can also use the hints that are in some of the exercises as well.
There’s also an online dictionary, which contains definitions of all the terms that students will come across in the maths curriculum. As you can see, this is quite a nice feature. My son also thought that the topics jumped from really easy to really, rather quite difficult. And for the difficult topics, even though it was still only ten questions per exercise, it took him a lot longer than for the easy topics and he wasn’t at all happy about that. Yes, it’s not perfect, but actually, overall, when you’re actually looking at the cost of this program – £15 £19.99 per month, when for Kumon you’re paying £50 a month. For Kip McGrath you’re paying £100 a month. For a private tutor, probably about £100 a month as well. For £15 £19.99 a month your child is getting an online personal maths tutor who’s guiding them through the maths curriculum. They’re getting exercises and tests, and you as a parent are getting a detailed report that you can look at daily, weekly, or monthly, and know exactly how your child is progressing.
So I hear you ask, what’s the verdict? Well, my son gave Maths-Whizz a score of nine out of ten, and I also gave Maths-Whizz a score of nine out of ten, giving an overall score of nine out of ten. For more reviews, quick tips, and practical advice to help you guide your child to maths success, visit www.MathsInsider.com.
Try Maths-Whizz for yourself!
Maths-Whizz have given Maths Insider readers a special link where you can create a free version of Maths-Whizz. With this your child can enjoy a free Maths Age assessment and then will have access to 5 lessons based on their ability.
Click on the link below to test drive Maths-Whizz for yourself, then come back here and tell me your verdict in the comments below!
10 Responses to “Maths-Whizz Testers Needed!”
Tweets that mention Maths-Whizz Testers Needed! | Maths Insider -- Topsy.com on November 2, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by johnson, Caroline Mukisa. Caroline Mukisa said: Maths-Whizz Testers Needed! http://goo.gl/fb/VJgVs #parenting [...]
MathsInsider Reviews Maths-Whizz Tutoring | Maths-Whizz-The Whizz on November 2, 2010
[...] What’s the verdict? A highly respectable 9/10! Watch the Mathsinsider video below to get the full picture, or read the MathsInsider review transcript. [...]
ColinW on November 2, 2010
Just started my 6 year old daughter on Maths-Wizz. She’s finished the initial assessment and quite likes it, although she needed a little encouragement (not cheating!) in the assessment to make her focus and attempt the more difficult questions instead of just clicking the “don’t know” option.
ckmukisa on November 4, 2010
Yes Colin, it’s sometimes hard for us parents to see our kids “underachieving” on these initial assessments! I think though the Maths-Whizz system would quickly readjust as she spent more time on it. Do pass by again and let us know how it all works out for you both!
Mary Smith on November 21, 2010
We have been using the programme for 3 months now and I have to say it is fantastic, and I think you have done a great review Caroline.
When I found Maths Whizz I asked my son to do the assessment – he loved it.
If you help your child, or your child messes around then you could end up with tutorial lessons being too hard or too easy, so its important to do the assessment when your child is ready to learn, and not to offer any help (as tempting as it is).
Whizz has a clever way of automatically taking you to your next tutorial lesson and it’s easy for children to be absorbed into doing the lessons to earn points.
With many maths programmes, whether online or via CD, you normally select the year group you want to work on. This means that sometimes the questions are too easy, and others are too hard, both of which can be demotivating and demolarising to a child. With Maths Whizz, you have no control over the level of maths your child does, Whizz sorts this out for you, so you could be working on a Year 5 level for one topic, and maybe a Year 4 for another. These levels are set once the assessment has been completed. But it is not obvious to the user. Maths Ages are given out on the reports but if this is likely to be an issue to your child, you dont need to let them see the reports.
With many maths programmes, children will not select a topic they cant do or dont understand. The Whizz maths has a tutorial for every strand of maths that your child will/should encounter at school and they have to complete the lesson before they can move to the next topic. If they struggle, then when this topic reappears it might be an easier lesson. They cant avoid any topics which I think is really good.
Overall I have been extremely impressed with Whizz Maths. Its motivational and interesting, and I too have learnt so much. If I have had any queries, they are always answered within 48 hours and they always follow up if they cant answer immediately.
I like paid subscription sites so that you do get reports and feedback. If your child is completing games on the free websites you dont always see how they are doing or if they really understand what they are learning. It has been very interesting to observe the range of maths topics available and also my son’s knowledge and understanding.
What has also been interesting is to see the topics develop at each stage. No doubt your children come home and say theyve done maths and it was the same as last year, but through Whizz I have seen how the topic is the same, but advances one step at a time so the children think theyve already done it and got it right, they can do it again.
I would definitely recommend this site! Some very clever programming indeed!
ckmukisa on November 21, 2010
Hi Mary,
Glad you liked the review, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on Maths-Whizz – your comments will be really valuable for other parents who are looking at using online maths programs for their children! You’re right about the Maths-Whizz maths age making the program more effective. When I trialled Education City I had to manually adjust my children’s year level to try to get work which was at the “right” level, with Maths-Whizz the work is based directly on your child’s ability, which interestingly enough is what Kumon aims to do.
Mary Smith on November 22, 2010
I also recommend encouraging your children to do the replays on a regular basis.
The lessons are recorded into sections in the Replay area:
Gold – 100% and fast time
Silver – 100% but slow time
Bronze – 80-99%
other – less than 80%
You can replay these lessons and the challenge is to improve your time (and score) and if you do you earn more points. In addition, you can challenge other Whizz members which is an incentive to try and get better times.
It is too easy to just let your child go through the tutorials but then not cover the topic again, and especially if they did struggle, by taking part in the replays it will help improve their confidence and understanding.
These same lessons are also available under the Revision section in the bedroom, but they are not timed, and they are sorted into topic order which may be more useful when searching for specific subjects.
Mary Smith on January 17, 2011
Some more time has passed since my last review and I am still extremely happy with the product. The maths ages across the range are now aligning together more closely.
The lessons have continued to be interesting and motivating and I have watched my child’s confidence just grow. There were certain elements of Whizz he hated (because he thought it was hard) but now when those lessons appear he says “this is really easy”. Children don’t tend to notice the subtle differences between each lesson and believe they are doing the same exercise.
I am also surprised (as a parent who isn’t (wasn’t) good at maths) at how many different strategies are taught for mental calculation – it’s also a great programme for parents to use!! Maths is so easy when you know how. I only wish I had been taught the way kids are taught today. My maths knowledge has definitely improved as well, just by watching the lessons.
I haven’t used many other subscription maths programmes so I cant given any comparison, but I personally think Whizz is a fantastic product.
…and what is more beneficial is my son is still enthusiastic about using it.
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