Software Evaluation

 
 

    I really enjoyed teaching this Mega Math Blasters computer software lesson because it made me be able to see my portrait student Andrew in a context that I hadn’t been exposed to before.  In the course of the lesson, he wasn’t getting easily frustrated, which I was ecstatic about.  This was my major concern in dealing with the software.  I am completely aware of his dislike towards mathematics, so I definitely think that I was planning on expecting the worst with this experience.  However, I was greatly surprised.  Andrew seemed intrigued by the game, and extremely excited to be working with the computer.  I was also very paranoid that he wouldn’t be able to get into the challenge and pacing of the game, which was why I had him start in the 3rd level, which I had gauged him to be at or close to its level of ability.

    What I learned about my portrait student Andrew was that he can be motivated to stay focused with the right materials and resources.  He has a lot of difficulty paying attention in school which is due to several factors, so I was very pleased to see that this software got him interested in math and he was able to stay focused longer than any other time that I had observed him this semester.  This really pleased me, because the software I had chosen dealt exclusively with math, one of Andrew’s least favorite subjects.

    One thing that stands out in my mind when I have to think of something that Andrew taught me about in the lesson was in moving the player of the game.  In one of the phases of the game, the character had to jump up or over various objects to move ahead to the next stage.  Andrew surprised me when he attempted a new way in moving over the objects by getting the character on top of a manhole cover and waiting for the steam to push up the cover to the height of the next level.  It really impressed me how he came up with such an ingenious way to play the game, which leads me to believe that the game was challenging him in more than the obvious ways that I had expected.

    If I were to do this session again in the future, I would explore the software a little more than I had previously.  I only worked with the game for around ten minutes, and this included a lot of instruction that was given to me in the game.  Because I knew what was going to occur in the beginning, I had Andrew bypass these screens and go directly to the game.  Once we began the game, Andrew flew right through the levels that I was struggling with as a player in my own practice games.  I was amazed at his level of ability, which was in actuality higher than I had anticipated.

    In preparing for this software evaluation, I learned a very valuable lesson dealing with the teacher’s ability and right to be able to preview such pieces of software before purchasing.  In the beginning of this project, I had selected two different pieces of educational software, both looking very worthwhile and incorporated math into the activity.  However, through my exploration of the software, they were both not up to my standards of what I wanted to get out of educational software.  They were very complicated, tedious, and time consuming, all of which generated negative feedback in my eyes. They were too general for my taste, because I knew what specifics I desired out of such a piece of educational software, which both of these lacked.  This discovery then led me to the choice of Mega Math Blasters, which was like an oasis, leading me to the end of my frustrating journey o worthy educational software.

    I would definitely use the Mega Math Blasters software in my classroom.  It is an excellent aid for almost all of the math processes that are explored in the elementary school curriculum.  It was very easy to use and teacher friendly because I think that it could be easily integrated into the everyday math curriculum.  It is extremely visually stimulating, and it is similar to several arcade games, so it has a mass appeal to the students of today.  However, while it is such a fun and entertaining game, it also has a wide educational value in the elementary school classroom, providing an enjoyable way to practice memorizing math processes.

     In my classroom, I would use this software as an aid in whatever math concept I would plan on teaching that it could be applicable to.  I think this software is so good I would try an have my students each have a scheduled time at least once a week to work on whatever process they were currently working on simply to gain more experience with the concept.  I would also have this software available for students to use if they ever came up with free time during the course of their typical day.