Mathematics Apps for School

We are always hearing about new apps and trying to find ones that are great for students. There are so many mathematics apps available, it is hard to find the ones that are best for student learning.

Recently we sat down with our school's Mathematics Coach, Tilson Crew, to evaluate what apps we should put on the Infant (K1, K2 and grade 1) and Junior (Grade 2-5) iPads. Tilson has an incredible understanding of mathematics and what is best for students of all age levels. 

So many of the mathematics apps out there are ones that have the student just practice algorithms. We were looking for apps that would set themselves apart in a number of ways. 

So what sets a great mathematics app apart from others? There are a number of features that we really like which make the app great in a school environment.

1. Is the app customizable? Can you start at different levels or do you always have to start from the beginning? If we can start further ahead, it is easier to customize the app so the older students don't have to start with levels that are much too easy for them.

2. Does the app allow for different users? In a classroom, there isn't always one iPad for each student. So having an app that allows students to log in and have their own experience is a great feature. Mathematics apps often increase in difficulty (as they should) as the student gets better. But what happens when a student who is very proficient uses the app and then another student who isn't as proficient tries it and it is too hard. Having different users in an app allows for each student to progress at their own speed. Many of the apps that have different users also allow a teacher (or parent) to go and monitor the progress of the different users.

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? Or is it simply drilling and practice of math facts? Some apps require students to think in multiple ways when solving a problem while others are repetitively solving problems. Not that there is anything wrong with repetitively solving problems, but many apps do that. You can find worksheets or internet based games that will do that. 

4. Is the app engaging? Student engagement is an important factor. Of course, not every student is going to be engaged with everything that is done at school. However, when I hear a student say that they have to get this 

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? Some apps have a lot of bells and whistles and fancy graphics. They look great on the outside, but students might not spend that much time actually engaging in mathematical thinking.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? Timed mathematics practice can be a very touchy subject. Generally, we don't like apps that put pressure on students when they are learning. This isn't an absolute, but it is nice if this feature can be turned on or off.

Of course we are not saying that all apps have to have all of these features. But these are some of the things we are considering when we evaluate mathematics apps.

Here are some of the apps that we found that we really liked.

Addimals - A great app that teaches adding strategies.
Appropriate for: K - 3

1.  Is the app customizable? You can't customize where students start. But the students are taught about different strategies in adding.

2. Does the app allow for different users? Yes. Teachers can also monitor the progress of individual students.

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? The app encourages students to try different addition strategies. They can choose the best strategy for the question.

4. Is the app engaging? Students enjoy the app and enjoy the progress they see.

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? Although there are videos in between levels, I find that students are very motivated to get to the mathematics and often skipped over the videos.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? The only time that the students are under time pressure is when they are working on the memorization part of the app.

Cost - Free


Overall - This is a great app for school. I love how students can be tracked and progress in their own time. One of my favourite things about this app is that it teaches students different mathematics strategies. Must have.

If you like Addimals, you should take a look at the Mt. Multiplis app by the same Teachley Group. It is designed to teach multiplication strategies and is in the same style as Addimals. Here is a quick video.

Subitize Tree - An app to teach quick recognition of numbers
Appropriate for: K - 3

1.  Is the app customizable? You can choose different level to start.

2. Does the app allow for different users? No

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? No

4. Is the app engaging? Somewhat - because the app does one thing (shows a number quickly and then gets students to recall what number was displayed), students can sometimes lose interest.

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? There are some breaks in the app and I wish it moved along a bit faster, but overall it is quite good.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? Yes. The whole point of subitizing is to quickly recall how many items are in a group. But the amount of time that is allowed is customizable.

Cost - $0.99

Overall - This app is designed to do one thing - test the student's ability to see a set of objects and recall how many there are in the set. It does a good job of this and one can customize the level which students start at. Great for specific skill.

Friends of Ten - Using two rows of 5 to teach concepts around recognizing numbers to ten without counting them.
Appropriate for: K-2

1.  Is the app customizable? No, but there are a number of activities in the app

2. Does the app allow for different users? No

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? No

4. Is the app engaging? There are a number of different activities to engage the students

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? The mathematics is the focus of the app

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? No

Cost - $0.99

Sushi Monster - An app which requires students to find two numbers that when added together (or another part of the app, multiplied together) form a number.
Appropriate for: K - 5

1.  Is the app customizable? No. You need to go through the levels to get to the next level. But once you have gone through a level, you can go back to it

2. Does the app allow for different users? No

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? There can be multiple options to add a set of numbers together.

4. Is the app engaging? Students can choose from addition or multiplication and they enjoyed trying to beat their score.

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? The mathematics is the focus of the app with a little wait time for the question to be asked.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? No

Cost - Free

Overall - I really like how there are multiple options that the students can choose when solving a problem using this app.

Jungle Time - An app to teach student about time.
Appropriate for: K - 3

1.  Is the app customizable? There are lots of options to customize including the sounds and different time intervals.

2. Does the app allow for different users? No

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? No

4. Is the app engaging? Young students will enjoy the animals in the app.

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? The majority of time students spend in the app is trying to tell time but some of their time is spent waiting for the hands of the clock to spin around.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? No

Cost - $2.99

Overall - The app does a good job of helping students learn to tell time and has a number of options to customize the app.

Blackboard Madness Math - A great app for challenging students' thinking. Very much like Fruit Ninja.
Appropriate for: Grades 4 - 5

1.  Is the app customizable? No

2. Does the app allow for different users? No

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? Yes - students are required to look at nontraditional questions and solve them quickly.

4. Is the app engaging? Students enjoy the way the nature of the game where they have to slash the correct answer.

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? Students are always engaging in complex mathematics

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? Yes - the students are under pressure to solve problems quickly.

Cost - Free

Overall - This is a wonderful app for challenging students in terms of complex thinking and problem solving. The pressure of answering questions quickly won't be for all students though.

Mathboard - A Mathematics learning focused app that isn't flashy, but focuses on helping students learn about the four basic operations.
Appropriate for: Grades 2 - 5

1.  Is the app customizable? Yes - This is the best app for customization. You can customize the language and even customize the way each word is said (e.g you can change sum to add or plus or any other word).

2. Does the app allow for different users? Yes - and you can track the progress of the different students.

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? Yes - students are required to look at nontraditional questions and solve them quickly.

4. Is the app engaging? This app is not flashy like some mathematics apps, but it is based on learning.

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? This app is all about learning. Students can even put in their own question (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) and the app will show them how to solve it step by step.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? No

Cost - $4.99

Overall - Check out the video below to see the features in action. It is one of my favourite apps and totally worth the $4.99 price tag. You can track students and it is very customizable. 

Kakooma - An non-traditional addition app which requires the student to look at nine numbers and find a set of three related numbers.
Appropriate for: Grades 3 - 5

1.  Is the app customizable? There are 4 different levels one can try

2. Does the app allow for different users? No

3. Does the app require more complex thinking? Yes - students scan a series of numbers and try multiple combinations to find a set of three. It is a puzzle type format and can be challenging.

4. Is the app engaging? Once you know how to play, the app can be very engaging. 

5. How much time does the student spend on mathematics? There are no bells and whistles on this app. There aren't even clear instructions. The whole time students are on this app, they are working on addition skills.

6. Does the app put the pressure of time on the students? It is timed activity but the running clock is small and in the top corner of the app.

Cost - Free

Overall - I love this puzzle app. There are so many problem solving strategies that students can use while trying to find the set of three numbers.

Nice to Know - Infant Digital Literacy

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow." - John Dewey

We no longer question whether or not the use of digital technology improves learning; there is a large body of research that clearly shows that it does.

The vast majority of our students arrive at UWCSEA with a solid understanding of how to use technology for entertainment. Our challenge is to help show them how to leverage digital tools to enhance their learning.

We believe the use of technology at UWCSEA should be purposeful and directly connected to learning outcomes. In our Nice to Know parent session, we highlighted examples of some learning experiences our students are engaging with, so parents would have a chance to try them out first hand.

Photography
UWCSEA Profile connections: Creative, Self-Manager

Documenting a child's view of the world is a very powerful thing. The ability to capture great photos is fast-becoming an essential skill. Anyone can turn a phone on and take a photo, but there are a number of skills inherent in taking wonderful photos (ones that are in focus, for starters!) that we think are important to teach our students.

Digital Literacy coach David Caleb (a published photographer himself), worked with K1 students to show them the basics of how to hold the iPod Touch, how to focus, and some tips around perspective. Click through the presentation below to see his examples.



Once students know how to take good photos, then this learning can be put to great use. By way of example, students can:

• Become shape detectives, photographing examples of 2D and 3D shapes in the real world.
• Show their understanding of letters or sounds by taking photographs of things that start with M or L etc.
• Photograph places in the school that have forte sounds or piano sounds in Music.

Publishing & Researching

UWCSEA Profile connections: Communicator, Critical Thinker, Collaborative

Encouraging student reading and writing is something we are very passionate about, and we have explored using the app Book Creator to support literacy. 

Grade 1 students created anthologies of their poems, by taking a picture of their handwritten poem, which they then read aloud. This allowed them to gain experience not only in publishing poetry, but also reading it aloud with a storyteller voice. 

Grade 1BRo piloted the publishing of their class poetry collection to WriteNowBooks.org - a site dedicated to publishing student-created digital books. We hope to have more books on the site as the year progresses.

Book Creator is a very versatile app, and can be used for many different educational purposes. In their Non-Fiction reading unit, Grade 1s read in book clubs; reading a number of books around a specific topic. Taking notes can be a challenge for young readers, post-its can fall off and students can forget which book a specific fact came from.

We used Book Creator as an oral note-taking platform. Students worked with their book club buddy to take a photo of a book's cover, the page their fact was on, the page number, and recorded their facts. Here is an example of what they came up with:

Documenting Learning

UWCSEA Profile links: Communication, Critical Thinker

Technology provides us with a unique opportunity to collect evidence of student learning. This can be used as formative assessment in order to make instructional decisions, or simply as a tool students can use to reflect.

In K2, students have used Sago Mini Doodlecast to explain their thinking as they looked at the pile of rubbish the class generated over a period of time, and to share and explain a counting strategy.

Primarily, we look for opportunities for authentic experiences with technology that get children to actively create and be engaged. We want to have students be content producers more than content consumers. We don't use iPads as digital baby sitters.

There is still a place for reinforcement of skills taught, and there are times when small groups will use apps for consolidation purposes as part of a maths rotation for example. This type of technology use is purposeful and deliberate. Students are directed to a specific set of apps to explore during such occasions.

Digital Citizenship

The UWCSEA goal is to educate individuals to embrace challenge and take responsibility for shaping a better world. This applies in all aspects of their lives - especially when using technology.

We include Digital Citizenship lessons as a part of our Personal and Social Education (PSE) curriculum. We used the Common Sense Media curriculum as a base for our lessons. We introduce these lessons where they best fit over the scope and sequence for the year. For example, it makes sense to do a lesson on keywords when students are searching for images for their endangered animals research.

Balancing Technology Use at Home

We often get questions from parents around the issue of technology use at home. How much is too much? What's an appropriate amount of screen time for my child? What happens when they have a tantrum when it's time to turn the device off?

There are no hard and fast rules for these sorts of questions. Like bedtimes, they are often different for each family, and that is okay. Journalist Lisa Guernsey, author of the book Screen Time, advocates 3 Cs - Content, Context and the individual Child, when thinking about screen time, which we believe is a very common sense approach:

Think first of the Content - is it age appropriate for your child?
Next, consider the Context - does this screen time form a relatively small part of your child's interactions with you and the wider world?
Finally, think about the individual Child. As a parent of two very different children, my approach to screen time needs to take into consideration the sorts personalities and needs of each child. My daughter isn't that phased by having to turn devices off, however my son responds best to predetermined, clearly defined time limits.

We DO recommend parents take some time to interact with their child using technology. Have a go at Minecraft and see what all the fuss is about! Show them you are quite a dab hand at Angry Birds, Dance Dance Revolution or whichever game is capturing their imaginations right now. Children respond very well to spending time with you, and playing together in this way can be very rewarding.

Further Reading

You may be interested in the following articles around technology use, gaming and screen time limits:

The Touch Screen Generation
How to be a Fun Dad But Still Be in Control
Video Game Addiction: Does it Occur? If so, Why?

Grade 1 Students Start Blogging with Easy Blogger Jr

At UWCSEA we like to empower our students to share their learning in lots of different ways. They take charge at Student-Led Conferences, and interact with various service groups as part of the school year.

In Grade 1, we wanted to add blogging to an authentic audience to the list, both as a part of our Digital Citizenship curriculum, and an extension to their critical thinking and literacy development.

The app Easy Blogger Jr (developed by teachers) was the perfect starting point. In Ms Robinson's class, we first discussed what a blog is, and why we use blogs.

Grade 1 BRo thought that we use blogs:
- To share what we have been doing.
- To help us remember our learning.
- So people far away (e.g. Grandparents in other countries) can see what we are learning.

We let the class know we wanted their expertise in helping share their learning with others on our class blog. Discussions then ensued about what we needed to have in a blog post. We came up with a list of things to think about as we blog.

The class decided on the following:
- Use sensible words.
- Use pictures to show what we are doing.
- Use words to explain.
- Think about what we want to say first.
- Use a storyteller voice.

We then invited students to help demonstrate the app (we reflected the app on the interactive whiteboard so all students could see), and created our first blog post as a class. From there, students paired up and created posts about the learning that week.

Here is an example of a blog post Jack & Zakia created to explain the things they want to remember when blogging.

Why not leave them a comment and tell them what you think!

Grade 1 Poetry Books using Book Creator

Our Grade 1 students have been thoroughly enjoying their poetry unit. They have looked at the poems of different authors, tried to emulate their style, and have create their very own poems.

We wanted to capture the beautiful poems the students had written, so we decided to make an eBook with Book Creator. The added value we gained in using a digital format is that the students could include a voice recording of their poem.

In class, we set up a couple of Justands (iPad Stands) with the app open. Students took turns to take a photo of their poem, add their name, and record their voice.

As a nice follow-up activity, students showed their parents how to do it during student-led conferences last week.

We have published a couple of the poetry anthologies to WriteNowBooks.org, so if you would like to download the books yourself, please do!

Grade 1 BRo Poetry Anthology

Grade 1 LoW's Poetry Collection

Doodlecast in the Infant School

In the Infant school, our youngest students in K1 and K2 have been using Sago Mini Doodlecast to share their thinking about what they are doing in class.

The teachers love that the app is easy to learn for both themselves and their students.

Here are some samples from some students. The first looked at the trash that one class created in a week. The second is looking at how students knew how many counters there were in a set.  



 There is Doodlecast Pro which gives more functions and is more suitable for older students too.

Drawing Pad

I have been working with K1 students at school on a unit about feelings. One of the projects that we have attempted was for the students to create a self portrait of themselves using an iPad. The K1 team decided to use an app called Drawing Pad as there are a few functions that allowed the students to create a wonderful representation of themselves. The app is $1.99 (depending on the currency of the store you are purchasing it from). Before we opened the Drawing Pad app, I had to capture an individual image of each student, I was working with (in small groups of 3-6). I used the regular camera app to do this and found that selecting a square picture worked better than a regular picture. Once in a while I had difficulty when capturing regular sized pictures as they sometimes imported into drawing pad all stretched out. Depending on the class, I either had the students (with teacher support) capture the photo or just have the teacher capture the image. I captured a picture of each student with the iPad that they would be using. As I was always working in small groups, this was the first thing I did with each student when they joined my group. Then the students opened Drawing Pad and I allowed them a few minutes to explore the app to see how it works. I modelled how the students could add their picture into a new page. I started by helping the students locate the different paper types and then opening them.







Then the students choose the film strip option to access the images on the iPad's camera roll. They chose the portrait that has already been captured of themselves and imported it into the page.

 Once the image has been inserted, the students touched the home icon to go back to all their tools. I found that the marker pens did the best job for this project. I modelled the process for them and they were very excited to try it themselves. The students chose different coloured pens to trace over their picture. Some chose to stick to the colours from their image while others didn't. I didn't mind as long as they tried to represent themselves in a portrait. Once the students were done, I saved the image to the camera roll. Then came the best part - I went back to the paper types where we originally added the student's picture and chose a white paper instead of their picture. So the image behind their pen drawings disappeared. I always loved seeing the results and so did the students.


 This was an easy project that yielded some fantastic results. It was accessible to all students and they enjoyed learning some iPad skills as well as

Customizing your Blog header

You can customize your blog header in Blogger to have a more personalized picture to represent your class. Follow the steps below to change your header.

Getting Started with your Class Blogs

Each infant class has been set up with a class blog accessible from the school website (www.uwcsea.edu.sg). The purpose of the blog is to share the learning that is happening in the classroom with parents and the wider community.

1.  Log in to the school website and click on the East Learning (Note: The left hand side of the icon)

2. Select Infant or Junior as needed

3. Select your grade level

4. This will take you to your grade level page which the parents of your students will see. (Here is an example from K1)

5. Click on your name to access your class blog. It will look like this:

6. If you are signed in, you can click on the Blogger icon in the top left so you can edit your blog. 

7. Click on the name of your blog to open the editing menu

8. Click on New Post to add a new post, or click on Posts to edit a draft post.

9. Type a Title, some Labels (Keywords separated by commas) and type your message. 

You can save a post, which means your work is saved in draft form. You can edit at a later stage if you like. When you are finished the post, click Publish, which will mean your post will be visible to the public.

10. Posts do not need to be long, however we strongly recommend every post include photos. Visit this blog post to see how to embed a Picasa Slideshow.

Please feel free to contact either Dave or Keri-Lee if you would like some help with this process. 

Adding a Picasa Slideshow to your Blog

Follow these instructions to embed a Picasa Web Album to your blog.

1. Select the photos you would like to share from your iPhoto Library.

2. Click on File -> Export

3. Click on Picasa and make sure you have Better Quality selected.

4. Sign in to Picasa with your Google Apps account.

 

5. Click Allow access.

6. Fill in any more details (e.g. album name etc) and click Export.

7. Click on view to go to Picasa & see your album

8. Make sure your album is Public on the Web. Click on Link to this Album.

9. Click on Embed Slideshow

10. Select Large and copy the embed code in the box at the bottom.

11. Switch over to your blog and open the post you want to put the slideshow in. Create a post title, write your text, and don't forget to add some labels (Keywords).

To add the slideshow, click on the HTML button (top left).

12. Go to the end of the text, then Paste the embed code you copied earlier.

13. Click on Compose again, and you should see your slideshow embedded in your blog post. You can continue and publish from there.