BP3_2010031_Web2.0Tool1CarrotSticks

There are few of us in the Educational Media Design program who do not have much to do with education and have to look at some assignment from a different perspective. I am a graphic designer with occasional one-on-one training requests. My department is very limited to Web 2.0 tools. I work in a server based/intranet environment with sensitive information that cannot not be shared with the outside world until approved. Any application or free trial downloads have to be approved by IS. There is not much room to improve my current work environment using Web 2.0 tools

However, my life is more than just my work. I have 2 school age kids. They both attend very technology-oriented school district. The school uses computers in the learning process but I noticed that it mostly helps in Reading and Writing classes. I thought that maybe I should look for Web 2.0 tools that could improve my daughter’s struggle with math. She likes math in general and solves the problems but she always complains that math is boring; either too hard to do or too easy to even bother.

Screen shots, courtesy of CarrotSticks, retrieved from http://www.CarrotSticks.com

Looking at the attached Web 2.0 applications I came across Carrot Sticks. This math teaching application for 1-5^th grade students is very fun to use. First and foremost, the application does not allow full names or “free chat” so the children are safe online. You can also sign up as a guest and stay totally anonymous. You start up with designing your own character and then go to start your challenge. You can play alone or accept challenge by any opponent who is currently online.

During my 15 minutes with the game there were average of 7-10 kids online. I challenged few of them and was challenged by two. This application is free for addition problems and costs $5.95/month to use with conjunction of subtraction, multiplication and division. Teachers can have all operations free of charge if using in a classroom environment. Each problem category is divided into 25 levels designed by Stanford School of Education. I used the free addition feature and went form level 1 to 22 to discover the difficulty progress. The levels progressed in difficulty and problems varied in nature so the game was not boring. I made few mistakes as the “lessons” do not allow to “carry over” digits in your head. This is where I lost a few carrots. After gaining appropriate amount of carrots, the character is moved to the next level. The message pops in asking for parents e-mail to send a certificate of completion. I did not sign up to receive the certificate but I think it is a quite rewarding feature. At the end of my testing I went to see my progress report. It consisted of my carrot score, playing time, number of problems solved, and wins, looses and ties form my challenges with opponents. The highest opponent’s score was over 39,000 carrots. Some lower scores were in a range of 20-50.

I would recommend this game to be played at school in the 1-5^th grade. Higher-grade children could very easily get through first levels and start real practice on harder problems. This game could easily substitute endless practice papers that are more boring and look all the same. The game is very colorful and appealing; it is way more engaging than black and white printouts my daughter has to fill in during math class or homework time. Being able to challenge others to beat them in time adds the motivation angle to the math learning in lower grades.

References

CarrotSticks (2010). Retrieved March 8, 2010 from http://www.carrotsticks.com/