Tag Archives: mymaths

BrainPOP Maths Videos

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First up a disclaimer: The lovely people at BrainPop UK offered me & my school a free 3 month subscription to their site in return for a post on their new Maths videos, this is said post.

With that out of the way, what’s BrainPop?  The website has videos for many subjects, all starring Tim and his beeping robot friend Moby.  Subjects covered include: Science, English, Maths, Humanities, Arts, PSHE, Citizenship & Design & Technology.

Tim & Moby can probably explain it better than me, head over to there introductory video here.

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eeePC First Impressions

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Well my eeePCs have finally arrived at school and I have to say I’m more than impressed.  They may be diminutive in stature but they are feature packed and surprisingly well made for the price (ours were roughly £170 each).

Thanks to Ewan Macintosh for the image. 

So yes, the screen and trackpad are a tad on the small side, but they are quite usable.  The cost and speed saving build of linux works great straight out of the box, although the tech guys at school are finding it a little buggy to get hooked up to the wireless.  They are also avoiding altogether any attempts to access network drives etc for the time being.  Hopefully as uptake grows, so will support for these issues.

Initial impressions from the children are that they love them!  Hopefully I will have them all wifi’d up this week and will be able to start using them on a lesson by lesson basis. Our main first uses will be access to MyMaths.co.uk, playing online maths games as rewards, and I’m looking into copying the videos from our Mathswatch CDs onto them, might have to invest in some headphones for this.

More soon….

MyMaths.co.uk – A Review

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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:

MM 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.