Math Circus – Act 1 is an educational software series has been extremely
popular in schools across the world. The software helps children enjoy mathematics and develop their problem-solving skills using the circus as its theme. Each section of the software has twelve puzzles and five levels of difficulty for each. The difficulty levels range from the very simple through to the very challenging. This makes it suitable for a wide range of ages and abilities, from preschool to the secondary level.
The program covers many mathematical topics such as positive and negative numbers, addition, multiplication, sums involving money, 2 and 3 dimensional geometry, sorting by color and shape, the physics of pendulums and trajectories, and even programming sequences of movements. More importantly, Math Circus - Act 1 challenges and encourages students to think for themselves.
In terms of user friendliness, Math Circus – Act 1 utilizes vibrant colours that are fun, inviting, and reflect its circus theme. The program also incorporates a pleasant tune that welcomes the user to “educational fun with numbers”. The navigation system begins as a rather straightforward approach while selecting your game type, however quickly becomes convoluted during game play. For instance, after completing a puzzle in the Seal Balance game the program appears to come to a halt. The initial reaction is that the game is loading the next puzzle, however the reality is the game is waiting for the user to press the continue button. The continue button is not labeled, and not strategically placed on the screen. The user must randomly start clicking on the screen to understand how to progress to the next puzzle. To resolve this issue, Math Circus – Act 1 should have placed a labeled continue button in the middle of the screen, after the user has successfully completed a puzzle.
Another issue that this program has is that there is no counter to determine how close the user is to completing the current level. Often times during game play I wondered how many puzzles were left for this game to be completed. It is important to note that this option might be available in the full student version.
An area that Math Circus – Act 1 successfully tackles is gender and multiculturalism issues. By having animals play the characters in their game, there is no partial biased to either gender or culture. Thus, in regards to these areas, all students should feel comfortable interacting with these games.
Surprisingly a major drawback to this program is its absence of help for the user. In the practice version, the program did not incorporate any type of help button in its navigational bar that would be able to explain/provide some helpful hits to the user to complete a puzzle. Likewise, there is no form of online support for either the student or the teacher.
In terms of motivation, as stated earlier, the game does incorporate lively colours and music that are fun, inviting, and reflect its circus theme. Simple animations as well as graphics are also utilized in a constructive manner. Separate audio files are played, when a user successfully completes a puzzle.
The above elements helpfully motivate the user to complete the puzzle, however I believe more could be done. For instance, a future motivational technique that this program could utilize would be a secret circus animal picture that slowly is revealed as the user successfully progresses through each puzzle. Another future motivational technique would include an animation of animals that are involved in the puzzle. This animation would be played upon the user’s completion of the game.
Another unique topic of Math Circus – Act 1, is its correction of mistakes for the user. This program will not allow a user to advance to the next puzzle until the user successfully answers the current puzzle. This allows the user to work on correcting their mistakes until they acquire the correct answer.
popular in schools across the world. The software helps children enjoy mathematics and develop their problem-solving skills using the circus as its theme. Each section of the software has twelve puzzles and five levels of difficulty for each. The difficulty levels range from the very simple through to the very challenging. This makes it suitable for a wide range of ages and abilities, from preschool to the secondary level.
The program covers many mathematical topics such as positive and negative numbers, addition, multiplication, sums involving money, 2 and 3 dimensional geometry, sorting by color and shape, the physics of pendulums and trajectories, and even programming sequences of movements. More importantly, Math Circus - Act 1 challenges and encourages students to think for themselves.
In terms of user friendliness, Math Circus – Act 1 utilizes vibrant colours that are fun, inviting, and reflect its circus theme. The program also incorporates a pleasant tune that welcomes the user to “educational fun with numbers”. The navigation system begins as a rather straightforward approach while selecting your game type, however quickly becomes convoluted during game play. For instance, after completing a puzzle in the Seal Balance game the program appears to come to a halt. The initial reaction is that the game is loading the next puzzle, however the reality is the game is waiting for the user to press the continue button. The continue button is not labeled, and not strategically placed on the screen. The user must randomly start clicking on the screen to understand how to progress to the next puzzle. To resolve this issue, Math Circus – Act 1 should have placed a labeled continue button in the middle of the screen, after the user has successfully completed a puzzle.
Another issue that this program has is that there is no counter to determine how close the user is to completing the current level. Often times during game play I wondered how many puzzles were left for this game to be completed. It is important to note that this option might be available in the full student version.
An area that Math Circus – Act 1 successfully tackles is gender and multiculturalism issues. By having animals play the characters in their game, there is no partial biased to either gender or culture. Thus, in regards to these areas, all students should feel comfortable interacting with these games.
Surprisingly a major drawback to this program is its absence of help for the user. In the practice version, the program did not incorporate any type of help button in its navigational bar that would be able to explain/provide some helpful hits to the user to complete a puzzle. Likewise, there is no form of online support for either the student or the teacher.
In terms of motivation, as stated earlier, the game does incorporate lively colours and music that are fun, inviting, and reflect its circus theme. Simple animations as well as graphics are also utilized in a constructive manner. Separate audio files are played, when a user successfully completes a puzzle.
The above elements helpfully motivate the user to complete the puzzle, however I believe more could be done. For instance, a future motivational technique that this program could utilize would be a secret circus animal picture that slowly is revealed as the user successfully progresses through each puzzle. Another future motivational technique would include an animation of animals that are involved in the puzzle. This animation would be played upon the user’s completion of the game.
Another unique topic of Math Circus – Act 1, is its correction of mistakes for the user. This program will not allow a user to advance to the next puzzle until the user successfully answers the current puzzle. This allows the user to work on correcting their mistakes until they acquire the correct answer.
Although during this evaluation process I was not able to log in as a teacher, I have been told by fellow teachers that the record keeping component of Math Circus – Act 1 can be used to see student completion of the various games and levels of activities in each. In the teacher component the following options are available: inspect a circus (results of one student), delete a circus (a student’s name), delete all circuses (all students’ names), change settings (music, sound, levels of difficulty, scanning time), and place a
password on teacher utilities.
Math Circus – Act 1 adequately coincides with the Ontario Curriculum for a variety of grade levels. For instance, in the Seal Balance game which requires arranging coloured balls in the correct order to match the bases on which they sit, the Grade 7 expectation for patterning and Algebra is adhered to. Likewise the Grade 8 expectation for number sense and numeration is met with the Balancing Cyclists game, where students balance the numbers on an integer line. As well, the Ticket Sales game, which requires the users to fill in the missing numbers to balance equations, incorporates the Grade 6 expectations for number sense and numeration.
One of the biggest drawbacks for this program has to be the issue of it being modern. Math Circus – Act 1 was made in 1993 and its presence in animations and sounds need to be updated. A suggestion was made earlier on how to incorporate animations as a motivational factor for students. The inclusions of additional animations could be useful to help students’ comprehension of the material at hand, and update the entire software as being modern.
In terms of sound, Math Circus – Act 1 utilizes a computer generated speech reader that helps students read game instructions. This robotic voice is quite horrid, and passé. Often times the background music drowned out this voice, which made it even more difficult to understand what was being spoken. Students who are at the primary age are just acquiring the skill of language, and therefore their minds are impressionable. They should not be subjected to indirectly learning how to speak from this type of robotic voice. In today’s digital age there are more realistic speech reader programs that would be advantageous for Math Circus – Act 1.
Math Circus – Act 1 has been a successful educational software tool for many years. Its strengths lie in being gender/culturally neutral, allowing users to correct their mistakes, allowing teachers to have an enormous amount of control in the assessment of their students’ work, and how it adequately coincides with the Ontario Curriculum for a variety of grade levels. The areas of user friendliness, help, motivation and being modern need to be addressed by this program. Once these issues are address, Math Circus – Act 1 may in fact be the most comprehensive educational software tool on the market. For now, this program receives 20/24.
One of the biggest drawbacks for this program has to be the issue of it being modern. Math Circus – Act 1 was made in 1993 and its presence in animations and sounds need to be updated. A suggestion was made earlier on how to incorporate animations as a motivational factor for students. The inclusions of additional animations could be useful to help students’ comprehension of the material at hand, and update the entire software as being modern.
In terms of sound, Math Circus – Act 1 utilizes a computer generated speech reader that helps students read game instructions. This robotic voice is quite horrid, and passé. Often times the background music drowned out this voice, which made it even more difficult to understand what was being spoken. Students who are at the primary age are just acquiring the skill of language, and therefore their minds are impressionable. They should not be subjected to indirectly learning how to speak from this type of robotic voice. In today’s digital age there are more realistic speech reader programs that would be advantageous for Math Circus – Act 1.
Math Circus – Act 1 has been a successful educational software tool for many years. Its strengths lie in being gender/culturally neutral, allowing users to correct their mistakes, allowing teachers to have an enormous amount of control in the assessment of their students’ work, and how it adequately coincides with the Ontario Curriculum for a variety of grade levels. The areas of user friendliness, help, motivation and being modern need to be addressed by this program. Once these issues are address, Math Circus – Act 1 may in fact be the most comprehensive educational software tool on the market. For now, this program receives 20/24.
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