MyMaths.co.uk - A Review
March 8, 2008 by mrstucke
I have introduced a fantastic resource into both of my recent schools over the last 2 years. It continues to impress me to this day and it’s about time I wrote a glowing review of it!
MyMaths.co.uk has been around for a couple of years now and continues to grow. When I originally bought it for my previous school it consisted of a series of excellent lessons with interactive elements for use on the IWB or a pupil’s individual computer.
Sample lesson:
There are also a wealth of excellent games focussing on all manner of mathematical skills. These are tremendously popular with pupils and work brilliantly on IWBs. A particular highlight of these are the leaderboards, showing the highest score of the day and of all time for all users. It’s a great incentive trying to beat other schools!
Over the last year online homeworks have been introduced. Each pupil is given an individual login so that their progress can be tracked. All of your class and pupil details can be uploaded with a simple csv file. This gives you the ability to set whole classes homework tasks and to monitor their progress online - no marking required! These combine with the excellent ‘Booster Packs’ designed to move pupils on to KS3 Levels 4 and 6, and GCSE levels C, B & A*.
The Management Console where you can assign tasks etc:
Pupil Feedback:
Overall MyMaths is a comprehensive suite of lessons, games, homeworks and other tools that covers the entire UK National Curriculum for Maths. The resources are well written and of a much higher standard than alternatives such as SAM Learning, it is also much easier to navigate than many of its competitors. Our pupils now complete more homework than they used to and have been spotted playing on the games in spare time during other subjects! A considerable number of pupils come back to the department during their lunchtimes to work through the Boosters. I must add that this includes a number of pupils who were not greatly engaged with Maths previously and who are now excelling.
At a cost of £400 per year, MyMaths represents excellent value for money. I am expecting to get much more use out of it now that I have taken delivery of 6 eeePCs for my classroom. Initial tests show that the site scales well to the size of the screen and I expect pupils will use it in the majority of my lessons.
So a gushing review, but one that is deserved, well done to the team behind it and long may the improvements keep coming.
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
So then Mr Stucke, I’ve toyed with the mymaths homeowrk idea. Setting tasks worked well with our GCSE and Sats groups using tasks from the booster packs and getting them to complete these to support the work that they’d done during a booster session. As these weren’t compulsory lack of access to a computer was less of an issue and those that wanted to could acces the tasks using the schools afterschool provision. but if we moved totally to online homeworks then what do the students with no internet access at home do? What do you do to get around this issue?
Hi Alex, how are you? I always assume that no-one I actually know reads this thing.
I am still searching for the answer to the homework problem.
When we’ve set them on mymaths we have always given the pupils at least a week to complete them and expected those without access to use the library computers at some point during that week.
I suppose a limited number of printed copies could be done, a homework tends to run to only two screens.
We’ve also tried posting old fashioned paper homeworks home this term, there has been a marginally higher completion of these but still not great.
I still don’t think we can move to totally online work in the environments we teach in.
Perhaps no homework is the answer?