Appp Media’s New Math app: Understanding Math – Times Tables

appp media have just released a new Mathematics app for multiplication and division, and I was fortunate to be given a copy to review.  The full name of the app is Understanding Math – Times Tables: Learn to fluently multiply and divide within 100, but that is a bit of a mouthful so I’m sure you won’t mind if I abbreviate it to Understanding Math – Times Tables for this review.

I have literally hundreds of Mathematic apps, and most of the multiplication and division apps are drill and practice, which is great for developing speed and accuracy, but Understanding Math: Times Tables offers something new.  The drill and practice element is there, but it is the understanding part that is a new and welcome feature.   The activities in Understanding Math – Times Tables are based  on Jerome Bruner’s  Three Modes of Representation learning theory and they explore the concepts of division and multiplication using different visual representations.

Each activity has been linked to the Common Core Standards for Mathematics.

Using Painting and Drawing Apps for more than pictures.

In a recent post I highlighted just a few of the many  Painting and Drawing Apps available on the App Store and presented my readers with some criteria for evaluating them.  This post looks at some of the ways these apps can be used across curriculum areas.

Mathematics

You may remember I noted that stamps/stickers can make an App more versatile, and that certainly is the case when it comes to Mathematics.  In a classroom, students commonly used counters, paddle pop sticks, blocks and other manipulatives to experiment with number.  Think of stamps as onscreen or virtual manipulatives.   If you don’t have stamps, you can use different colour and painting tools to create marks or shapes.

Save the Solar System (and practice your Math skills at the same time)

 Arithmetic Invaders is a collection of arcade-style apps that can help children practice various Mathematics strategies.  These drill and practice games have a kind of retro-Space Invaders feel.  As I’ve mentioned before, this kind of activity is not going to help a child learn their facts, but they can definitely help the child to learn to recall their facts quickly, which is an important skill when progressing to higher Mathematics.

Unlike other similarly themed apps (e.g. MathBlaster HyperBlast), one does not need a lot of gaming skill to play Arithmetic Invaders.  The controls are very simple so the child can concentrate more on the real task:  defending the Solar System.  Sorry. I mean practising their Mathematics skills.  Children need to calculate the sums shown on the alien spacecraft and then shooting the one that matches the number on their laser gun.  They move the gun by tapping the right or left buttons.  As they progress through the levels, children collect space pilot insignia as a reward. You can set the length of the game to 2, 3 or 5 minutes. Content covered at each level is clearly stated, although you can’t pick levels at random but must unlock each in sequence.  Unlocked levels can be revisited.