Whizz Review in the Guardian
Maths
Maths-Whizz
Publisher: Whizz Education
CD-roms for school PCs with online resources for home use.
Price: schools (reception and key stage 1) - £750 (initial cost plus site licence), with annual renewal of £150; home: £27.50 per month, £269 per year
whizz.com
This online maths subscription program lets children enter with their own password and then welcomes them with a huge singing hippo. Maths-Whizz rewards young mathematicians’ hard work by letting them decorate their virtual bedroom. The more problems they solve, the more stuff they can choose - a hamster that needs regular feeding, a lizard that plays the piano, snakes in a basket.
It alerts subscribers to new games for the holidays or pumpkins during the approach to Hallowe’en. If they work about 90 minutes a week as recommended, they - or their parents - are getting a bargain.
Parents can see weekly, monthly or yearly reports on what their children have done, and can check their “maths age” in all areas such as the ability to calculate prices.
But adults aren’t necessary, as the computer itself is a patient companion, giving intelligent hints in response to wrong answers, presenting concepts from more than one angle, repeating things where necessary, and giving lessons in areas where users seem confused or uncertain.
It offers an illustrated dictionary of terms from a.m. to zero and - in imitation of modern classrooms - offers a “whiteboard” on which children can draw, measure and add shapes just like their teachers.
The school CD-rom version doesn’t offer the bedroom goodies but does have all the highly attractive mathematical activities. Challenges at key stage 1 and most of 2 come with friendly voice-overs, and upgrades like this come with the school’s licence. Sound and animation are used imaginatively. Differentiation for individual pupils is made easy, so teachers need less time for the bureaucratic aspects of planning and devote more to the methods and logic of investigation.
Verdict: an enjoyable way of covering primary maths, with children able to learn at home under wise guidance.
TD
The original article can be found here.