Web Resource Review 1: IXL Math

IXL Math is a web site that I often go to for additional math practices for algebra lessons. It is a web site that offers problems and games for pre-K and K-12 students (kindergarten, 1st to 8th grades, algebra and geometry) and tools (reports, resources, math skills identified with specific state standards) for teachers and parents. They offer memberships for a price to schools, teachers, students, and parents so they can have access to all the resources the site offers (roster and reports for teachers to manage the progress of their students, awards and interactive games for motivating students, and reports for parents to monitor the progress of the students).

The web site is maintained by IXL Learning, a company founded in 1998. The company also publishes Quia Books (interactive online textbook and workbook. IXL web site was created in 2007 and designed to provide practice products for K-12 math education. Teachers have access to reports and data analysis tools to gain insight into student performance. The product development team (content developers, product designers, software developers) is composed of employees hired by the company and their content is checked by math PhD’s and teachers/tutors.

I really like how they organized the site and how you can easily search for specific academic skills to practice on. The site also organizes the skills/problems by grade levels and subjects. The problems are multiple choice and the answers can been easily selected by clicking on the blank dot by the answer choices. When you click into the practice problems, it lists every grade level and subject’s standards. And when you put the mouse over a specific standard, an associated practice problem pops up. I really this design because the students and parents can quickly gain an idea of what the standards mean by looking at these example problems (without having to click into the specific links). This site is safe for school environment and shouldn’t require adult supervision for students to access. However, a big con of IXL Math is that it charges a membership fee if one wants complete access (teacher report tools, games, roster, state standards, and rewards). This hinders the accessibility of the web site quite a bit. The family rate is about $10 a month or $80 a year. For teachers, there’s a 30-day free trial and the rate is $199 per class.

Overall, I really like the web site’s collection of practice problems, how the problems are organized by specific skills, and how the site keeps track of the time and scores during practice to help motivate the students. I think this would be very helpful for students and teachers who are preparing for state-wide exams. This also provides a tool for teachers to expand their practice problem banks. On the other hand, the access to the complete tools (rewards, games, roster, and student analysis) can only be obtained after paying for a rather expensive subscription fee ($10 a month for families and $199 per class for teachers). With complete access to the web site’s tools, a teacher can assign practice problems for his/her students via the web site and use the analyzing tools to keep track of the students’ performances. And the number of games the web site has can also help motivate the students. Since I am teaching high school students, the fact that they only have algebra I and geometry now is not ideal. However, the promise of algebra II and trigonometry to come is very promising. And I really look forward to the site’s incorporating more advanced mathematics (even post-secondary level mathematics). The reason that I recommend using the site in a K-12 classroom with reservation is mainly due the price of the subscription. Without paying for a membership, a teacher can’t obtain to the tracking tool and can’t offer students motivational tools such as games and rewards.