On-Line Edutainment
Note: This week’s post is from our sister site, CrazyKidsChicago.com, from Larry and features reviews of several Edutainment web sites.
These sites teach your kids reading and math by trying to make it fun. This seems to be a major trend as competing sites are consistently cropping up with the realization that kids are getting so familiar with computers so early. Our four year old is already pretty navigational with a web browser as he browses for Transformer toys, plays Spider-man games, and practices his numbers, words, and letters. In this Blog, we review Voyager, SmartyCard, and KidzClix. Each of these sites has their own take on how to educate our kids, provide rewards, and help them find fun in learning.
KidzClix.
KidzClix is a startup out of Evanston, Illinois. Began by an educational psychologist out of National Louis University, this site leverages a magazine paradigm. Each month, the site comes out with new “issues.” These issues provide new content to the site. KidzClix is $6.95/month with discounts for multiple month pre-pays. There is a thirty day trial to allow you and your kids to give it a test run.
KidzClix has an enormous amount of content divided into sections including: Science Time (Chemistry), Build It (Physics), Into The Future (green topics, technology trends), Imagine This (crack codes, play detective), Math Mania, Chess Club, Poof (learn about magic), Games and Puzzles, Artz Studio (sculpture, painting), Surprise (something different every time), Kidz Kitchen (learn to cook), and How It Works (explanations of biological and mechanical functions). Within each of these sections are 8-10 choices of content to view and experience.
KidzClix has a really interesting combination of on-line learning, digital activities, and off-line experiments. I played a balancing game, learned about invisible ink, and the ice cream section taught me how to make ice cream with ingredients and utensils in the kitchen. The site also comes with social media aspects where kids can ask questions, share artwork and projects, and create a home page.
The only complaint you’ll have about KidzClix is where to start and how to find the right content because there are so many things to try and it is a little clunky to move around. The “issue” paradigm works for the site so you can constantly try new things. If you use the free trial, be aware that the guest login has a different link (see your confirmation email) than the regular login on the home page.
SmartyCard. SmartyCard’s slogan is Learn Stuff/Earn Stuff and it pretty much says it all. SmartyCard’s approach is to award points to kids who try their activities and take their tests. Parent’s then buy SmartyCards which allow them to trade points for virtual (logins and points on other sites like Zookazoo) and physical gifts (like light sabers, an Incredibles DVD, Wii Games, or board games).
SmartyCard really focuses on 3rd grade and up though they have plans to move downstream later in the year. You specify in your profile the child’s grade and then the site will test them on age appropriate material. Like KidzClix, the site reinforces school learning and isn’t to be used to learn from scratch. To choose an activity, you can pick between Easy, Medium, and Hard in categories like vocabulary (antonyms and synonyms), reading comprehension, multiplication, ecosystem/ecology, science, fractions, and many others. Each activity is very flash card oriented and points are awarded based on difficulty and how many questions you get right (at least 70%).Parents can review their kids’ scores, site usage (categories played), time spent on site, and what they have redeemed. Redeeming rewards is easy for kids to do on their own. The site will only allow them to pick what has been purchased by their parents. As a new site, SmartyCard can be a little pokey at times, but overall SmartyCard provides an excellent opportunity for kids to set goals for themselves, learn, and achieve those goals.
Voyager. Voyager has been providing on-line learning programs for school districts and schools for several years. This year they have announced an initiative to sell directly to parents. They are offering their Ticket to Read and Vmath set of learning activities for $29.95.
Ticket to Read leverages your child’s grade and proposes age appropriate learning activities. Kindergarten was the lowest setting, so that is what I played with my four year old. Ticket to Read provided great graphical displays of letters and fun ways to test your kids knowledge. The game we played had a teacher explaining a small and large “A” and how an A is pronounced. The site then showed an apple tree with letters on the apples and asked him to pick the Apples with an A. We did a similar exercise with soccer balls that flew into a goal when you picked the balls with an “S”.
Vmath starts at the third grade level and is extraordinarily extensive. It is not available directly for parents yet, but you can try the free trial or petition your school to get it in the classroom. You have a choice to “Prepare” for live games or play live games. Preparation teaches about 10 different categories of math lessons like whole numbers, fractions, borrowing, and carrying. The activities provide kids with instruction and activities to test what they have learned. But the real activity is the Vmath Live games. The games allow you to choose a level of difficulty and then compete against other students across the world in different types of flash card games (addition, multiplication, combination). At about 10:00 at night, there were over 4,000 people on the site and I played adding games against a girl in Australia (I started to feel bad and threw the game at the end).Vmath is extremely elaborate. Because of their school district history, I felt that they did not consider the network bandwidth at a residence because some of the intensive graphics in the reading section were a little bit slow. Voyager is a time-tested learning tool and the Vmath live was an extremely unique experience.
Dad Says: How can computers not be a great way for your kid to learn? Using the computer at home, my kid has been able to feel comfortable with the computers at school. I would recommend trying all of these sites to see which one fits your style and let young and old kids reinforce their studies at school.
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