Math Agent

The Math Agent app is a digital card game that challenges students to use basic computational skills in a gaming environment. In both the single-player and multiplayer challenges, players "attack" by choosing a tech card. These cards range from one of the four operations to various triangle attacks, composite or prime attacks, and even a pi (unstoppable) attack. Opponents can defend themselves with defense cards to limit or negate the damage they may receive. Players are guided through a demo/tutorial and will have playing directions appear on the screen during play. Directions keep the game moving and describe what's needed for each tech card to activate its power. The Challenges section times students as they race to answer 100 single-digit calculations in five minutes. Each challenge successfully completed unlocks a new challenge card.

Teachers expecting game-based learning may be disappointed with Math Agent. The game portion is addictive, but the learning is minimal. Once tech cards and number cards are chosen, any computation is done by the system, so the game can be played without much mental work by students. Although the game does incorporate geometric terms and exponents in addition to prime, composite, and inequalities, the variety of terms doesn't appear to change from the easy to hard levels. Even with its exposure to new terms, teachers should use this with caution, as students are lead to see connections between concepts where there are none. For example, each time a triangle card is chosen, the perimeter of the sides is multiplied by 2. Kids can easily form bad habits if a teacher doesn't carefully de-program these misconceptions.