Math practice app is simple and limited
Community Review for Math Practice Boards
My Take
Math Practice Boards is a smart phone app that gives students arithmetic problems to solve: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Students can use the touch screen to solve the problems. So it's like a digital white board, except the screen is black. There are 10 levels of difficulty that don't go much past 4th grade.
How I Use It
This product could perhaps be used as a problem of the day, except that it gives immediate feedback. If you get it wrong, the correct answer is highlighted, and the app moves to the next problem. This leaves little opportunities for young mathematicians to troubleshoot their error and correct their mistake. Also, the blackboard invites students to work out the problem, but many of the problems are solvable through deduction and answer elimination. A problem like 52 ___ 62 = 3224 is better solved through mathematic reasoning than actually trying all four possible operations. Simpler problems are math facts that should be memorized anyway. That leaves problems requiring carrying or borrowing. Here the ability to solve the problem is somewhat useful. Another deficiency is the lack of precise level settings. Teachers can select addition/subtraction and/or multiplication/division, and they can choose between 10 different levels, but the levels are not defined,