Miller & Zois Kids Blog

Flow Math Is an App Worth Trying

FlowMath is a really good iPad math app that helps your child take the leap from memorizing math facts to making use of that knowledge. It is a great bridge from facts to a real math application.

FlowMath gives you an answer. Let's say it is 11 like the picture here. How do you get to 11? Your child might know that 5+6=11. But, can they figure that out given a bunch of numbers from which to choose? You can choose the numbers and the type of operation - start out with just addition if you child is doing something like this for the first time - and see how fast you can make your way through this twist on arithmetic tables.

The problems are randomized so there is an unlimited set of possible answers. Some problems have lots of answers and some have only one - those can be tough. The other cool thing about FlowMath is that is has a timer. So you can really compare apples to apples to see how you child is progressing.

FlowMath says it is configurable to 10, 20 or 30 problems although, for some reason, it is 12 when you pick 10. But other than that it works like you think it would.

I think there is a free version to try out FlowMath. But, honestly, it is just 99 cents. I'm guaranteeing you that your child will learn something from it. Just buy it and give it a try. If you like it (or not), come back here and leave a comment with your thoughts on this app.

• Maryland and Howard accused of putting profits over education. These complaints are attracting the interest of our Governor and even the U.S. Senate. One defense: everyone is doing it.
• Some are excited and some are concerned about the new head honcho at Baltimore County Public Schools.
• The University of Baltimore is trying to pick a new dean.
• Cheating in Baltimore school.
• Is the waiting over for technology to start making education cheaper?

If you read the popular books on success, almost all of the authors refer back to Carol Dweck's work. She is clearly a titan researcher so when I found out she had written her own book, "Mindset", I was giddy. Why not get it straight from the horse's mouth?

Her premise is that intelligence is not fixed but eminently teachable. If you don't believe this, if you have the wrong "mindset", it creates a self fulfilling prophecy and, worse, it makes you stop challenging yourself because you don't think effort helps. Moreover, a limiting mindset causes lack of fulfillment, depression and a host of other aliments. It all makes a ton of sense.

Unfortunately, for buyers of the book, I've told you virtually everything you need to know. She never really takes the book anywhere else beyond repeat the premise 1,000 different ways. Worse still, Dweck weaves in a bunch of silly anecdotes and contrived narratives:

• John McEnroe was basically a failure. He was one of the best tennis players in the history of the world and is the best commentator in tennis (at least arguably). This we know. Yet someone her narrative is paints him as a failure. I'm left with the question, if mindset is so important and his was so awful, how did he become great? That question gets lost in the "he saw awful" leitmotif.
• Michael Jordan's success was in part due to his great humility. Michael Jordan? Seriously? Have you read anything about Michael Jordan or did your research include watching 1,000 Nike commercials
• She tells this story about how she caught this big fly fish after a fishing lesson and two men her were there assumed her much too evolved husband would feel ashamed to have been beaten by a woman because they too felt ashamed. About catching a fish? The chances this was not just her interpretation at a joke? Close to zero. The whole thing just seemed out of touch.

And this is all just in the first few chapters. For such a serious researcher, Dweck frequently refers to studies but never actually provides any citation.

I feel bad beating down such an obviously brilliant researcher. But I went in with the presumption that this was going to be a good book and left it feeling like I had wasted my money. But that does not detract from Dweck's important message about mindset. I would just rather read Gladwell interpreting Dweck then reading Dweck herself.

For a different point of view, read this review.

PBS KIDS today announced that its new "augmented reality app" is available for the iPhone and iPod. The new Apple app is call "Fetch! Lunch Rush".

I have generally not been that excited about the PBS children apps which the singular exception of the fantastic "Monster at the End of the Book" which deserves its own post. But "Fetch! Lunch Rush is worth a shot if for no other reason than it is PBS and it is free.

To play Lunch Rush, you need to print out a PDF of game pieces from your computer which means you have to give up your email. Really, an i-Pad app should be self-contained and I'm not real impressed with this one. But if you are looking for a free simple math app you can give this one a try.

Effort to Teach Kids Practical Financial Skills

What is the biggest criticism of our schools today? Okay... that is too big of a bear to tackle... what is one of the biggest criticisms about our schools today? The failure to teach real life skills you need to be successful not only in a job but in life. (I'll go out on a limb and say this is historically the biggest criticism of law schools.)

Richmond public schools in Virginia are trying to help bridge the gap between learning and the real world, partnering with New Generations Federal Credit Union to give students real world financial experience. The theory? Students will learn while working at the bank how to deal with their own finances as an adult.

Virginia high school students are expected to take it a step further. Virginia schools require incoming freshman to pass economics and personal finance in order to graduate.

Will this be effective? I don't know. The one thing people miss is that schools don't fail to prepare you for the real world because they are stupid. It is just real hard to provide a facsimile of the real world that has the verisimilitude to be effective. But I love the idea. We need to keep trying new innovative things to get students ready for real life. Most ideas will fail but the keepers are... keepers.

Here's is an article on the effort in Richmond.

BoBo Explores Light is a Must Buy Education App

BoBo Explores Light is a new iPad app that has exploded to top echelon of educational iPad apps. Listed in the "Book" section by Apple, BoBo Explores Light provides the two things I am looking for in an iPad application: education and entertainment.

The app provides children with a fun and education way to learn about nuances of science such as how the human eye and lasers work and fundamental science that you children will see again and again throughout their education: reflection, refraction, photosynthesis, bioluminescence, aurora borealis and much more.

This knowledge is laced with fun. For kids, fun usually involves special affects. BoBo the robot and this app gladly provides the kind of specials effects that make the iPad such a transcendent educational too. Touch his antenna? Something fun will. Maybe sadly, my kids love being able to strike BoBo with lightening.

Some of the content is a little complex. Even I could not follow the proton/neutron explanation at one point because it went too far beyond my positive/negative knowledge base. But even if your kids are too young to fully understand, they get introduction to concepts that they are certainly going to see again down the road.

The price of BoBo Explores Light is on the high side: $6.99. But, honestly, after playing with BoBo for a week, we would have paid $69.99.

Okay, my kids and I have probably looked 25 times for new Bartleby 2 app now. We are going a little nuts. But I really think they are getting close. Here is blog post and video showing off what we can expect from the new Bartleby Book of Buttons.

• Bartleby's Book of Buttons: A Review
• Bartleby 2 Is Coming Soon
• More Great iPad Books That My Kids Love

Some people are moved by love, beauty, and justice. Some people are moved by money. If you are the latter, this post is for you. According to a new study, "Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?" by Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance, our inability to compete in education with the rest of the developed world may be costing us a trillion dollars a year.

A trillion. I know with all of the numbers being tossed around in our budgetary debacles, a trillion seems like the new billion. One trillion one dollar bills would go about 94 million miles which is further away than the sun.

U.S. students, this study found, fall behind 31 countries in math proficiency and behind 16 countries in reading proficiency. We seem to be beating most of Europe in reading. Then, again, pick up a newspaper. The European economy has bigger problems than we do. Maybe this is not a coincidence.

The reading does scare me more than the math. There is no question that math is important. But the U.S. is still churning out great mathematicians. I think it is more important to have great mathematicians than to raise median averages. Most of us know enough math to do our jobs.

But reading is a different story. Many more people need to be able to read, understand and comprehend. We need students with developed logical reasoning skills.

Continue reading "Educational Defects Cost a Trillion a Year" »

American University has a story about a dinosaur camp in Hyattsville, Maryland. This is just incredibly cool. The camp is taught by a paleontologist which gives you an indication that there will be some real learning. While calculating how long and burdensome it would be to send my kids to this camp next summer, this stopped me in my tracks:

Along this industrial cul de sac in Hyattsville, Md., there is a strip club, a bakery, and a construction site. This is an unlikely place for a classroom, but it is where Dr. Peter Kranz is leading a group of children and their parents on a journey through time.

Ah, I think that has half of the ingredients of my biggest fears as a parent. I think I'll head back to Danny and the Dinosaur.

Still, I love the idea. You can read the full story here.

The great iPad geography game, Stack the Countries, which I can't believe I have not done a review for yet, has added South Sudan to the game.

I'm giddy about this for two reasons. First, for all of the trouble it faces, the birth of South Sudan promulgates hope in an area of the world where hope is rarer than Haley's Comet. May God bless them all.

But, on a lighter note, it is a NEW COUNTRY! That's cool! I've been talking to my kids about the vote for independence in South Sudan and how a new country will be formed. We even drew in South Sudan on old maps. To see all of that talk manifested into a game they play, that's just awesome. And it underscores that power of the iPad and the Internet. I still remember having encyclopedias that I'm sure were outdated when they were being printed.

Another Dan Russell-Pinson game, Presidents v. Aliens, had a question that asked who was president when Bin Laden was killed. I didn't enjoy my 5 year-old's follow up questions about this. But it was still cool to have the game so current.

The lesson, as always, it is great to be a kid in 2011.

Anyway, if you have a child and you have an iPad, get Stack the States, Presidents v. Aliens, and Stack the Countries.

Bartleby 2 is on its way, according to Monster Costume's Twitter post last week. Literally, my kids have me look on the iPad every day to see if the new Bartleby 2 is out yet.

You can read about my love for all things Bartleby here.

Historically, there has not been a lot of honest assessment about the quality of our school teachers in Maryland. It is too sensitive, too subjective, etc.
But times are changing. Why? Because kids in too many other countries - China comes to mind - are outperforming us by whopping margins. To make meaningful change, we have to do things that are hard. Being honest - brutally honest - is just plain hard.

With that intro, the National Council on Teacher Quality ranked a random sample of three colleges in each state. The lucky Maryland winners were Mount St. Mary's University, Salisbury University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Actually, UMBC comes out looking pretty good, getting a "good" ranking. Mount St. Mary's? Salisbury? Not so well. They were ranked "poor" in training their teachers.

Honesty is tough. This report is part of a much larger study that most colleges renounced even before the first report came out. No one wants to be judged and we don't want to judge. One byproduct is that it indirectly maligns the good teachers that come out of these schools. But if you think these schools and principals and school officials who hire teachers are not paying attention to this report, I think you are kidding yourself.

The Baltimore Sun publishes this story, using a positive spin with the title "UMBC gets high marks for student teacher training programs." Potential headlines such as "Don't let your kid get taught by someone from Mount Saint Mary's or Salisbury" or "Bad teacher alert" were apparently rejected.

I think most people would say that UMBC is a better school - statistically speaking - than Mount Saint Mary's or Salisbury. (If you dispute this, you or your kid graduated from there.) That's no knock by the way on either school. Steve Bisciotti and Frank Perdue graduated from Salisbury and Mount Saint Mary's produced a number of smart people (that, admittedly, I have never heard of).

Continue reading "UMBC, Salisbury and Mount Saint Mary's Get Report Cards for Training Teachers " »