Math software, available on the Internet, may be useful to homeschoolers and parents.

All kinds of neat math software is available on the Web. Here I review several specific products which can help you or your children recognize how fun math can be. We review some good math software products here.

We review some good math software products here.

Here are some other math-teaching products.
...but we recommend our
Solid Gold Gnarly Math

Dear Visitor,

The Internet is certainly changing the way we shop. There are so many thousand products relating to math that I hesitate to make any recommendations. But there are a few products I've bought, which are worth knowing about. I've reviewed them down below, and have also listed sites where you will find free math products, and where you can read reviews of Children's software.

If you'd like to comment on anything you buy from this short list, or if you would like to suggest other products which particularly pleased you, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Sincerely,

There are many Web sites that offer freeware (which costs nothing) and shareware (which you can try for free, and pay for if you like it). Here is a site you can visit to look over the offerings in mathematics. When you enter it, search for "Math" software.
www.shareware.com.
There are also sites which review children's programs, and give their opinion of the more important products. The reviews are helpful, though in my experience when it comes to math, the reviewers are not knowledgeable about the subject, and mostly review the expressed purpose of the program along with its appearance. Here are the best sites I've found:
Children's Software.
The Review Zone.
Super Kids.
Kids Domain.
On the page called "Math Links on the Web", I mentioned a wonderful mathematical site which is run by a young fellow named Alexander Bogomolny. He offers a CD-ROM containing his entire Web page, and though much of the material is a bit difficult for youngsters, there's a good bit which will fascinate kids and adults as well. To order the CD, just go to Bogomolny's site, www.cut-the-knot.com and click the words "CD-ROM offer" at the top of the page. By clicking here, you'll find my list of sections I believe will fascinate kids aged 10-14. Teachers may find that this CD-ROM will give them a host of good ideas on how to intrigue their students with games and puzzles that make them think logically.
You are bound to like Geometry Blaster. Davidson and Associates have produced a remarkably useful and fun-inspiring, full-year course on Geometry here.
     The CD centers around a girl who has befriended a strange, small, flat man on the planet Dimensia, and must help him save his world from the Geometrons. You accompany the two of them through various adventures, each of which, of course, requires you to use some geometry. You can choose to be a beginner, expert, or master, so there are many levels of the game. The graphics and animation are wonderful.
     There is another part of the program which you can switch over to whenever you want--the teaching part. It contains 52 Geometry lessons, which take you right through the subject very effectively. Each lesson explains something (for example, points, or triangles, or volumes), and then makes you answer multiple-choice questions while it teaches you the subject, gives you some practice, and finally makes you apply it to some problem. The lessons on reasoning and on proofs are particularly good, and of course are very important.
     There are some "other activities" which are fun: tangrams, where you construct figures from polygons; a geoboard, where you can draw lines, triangles, circles and such, and can get them measured; and constructions, which show how a compass and ruler can be used to bisect an angle, or draw one line parallel to another. (The constructions are a bit disappointing because their correctness is not proved, nor is it mentioned that they can be proved.)
     The only drawback with this product is what's called "other resources". These include a calculator and glossary, which are fine, and also lists of postulates and theorems, which are not fine. The list of postulates is not Euclid's short list. Indeed, it contains many things Euclid calls theorems, which can be proved from his postulates. It also contains, as theorems, things that are equivalent to definitions.
     But on the whole, the very good parts of the program far outweigh these very bad ones. If you want to supplement a textbook, or brush up on your geometry, buy the program. But be sure to ignore the lists of postulates and theorems.
     This CD-ROM is quite reasonably priced. And it comes with a 30-day moneyback guarantee!
I am much less inclined to recommend Mathville VIP, from Courseware Solutions. It is aimed at grades 6 to 9, ages 11 to 14, and helps children review decimals, fractions, percent, graphs, area, perimeter, angles, probability, and many other elementary-school topics. It does this by letting you wander through the village of Mathville, which contains a place where you can work and gain credits (by answering math questions), and where you can spend your credits (again by answering math questions).
The graphics are ordinary, there is little or no animation, and (worst of all) there is no teaching or explanation. The CD-ROM is merely a review, and not a very good or inspiring one. There are many places where the answers are questionable. For example, it asks the student to calculate the batting average of a player who gets 1 hit in 5 times at bat. If you answer 200, you are wrong: the program insists that the answer is 0.200, indicating that the program writers are not familiar with baseball (presumably they'd say the perfect hitter is batting 1, where we'd say he's batting 1000).
I finish the review by pointing out that this CD-ROM costs more than twice what Geometry Blaster costs, and does not come with any kind of guarantee.

Carmen Sandiego, Math Detective (from Broderbund), in my view, is a good deal better than Mathville VIP but not nearly as good as Geometry Blaster. Here you are a detective whose job it is to return 16 World Wonders (including the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, the Nile River, and the Golden Gate Bridge) which have been stolen by the villainess Carmen Sandiego and miniaturized into small crystals stored in various places around the world. You have a choice of three levels of play, and can change that choice at any time.
When you first enter you give your name, and the program remembers your scores when you leave. There is very useful "Training Simulator" where you can learn how the tools (described below) work.
To locate the missing Wonders you must find clues in each location where a crystal might be found. Five tools help you find the clues, and each requires that various mathematical problems be solved. The tools are:

      The Atom Smasher makes you pick the right answer to various addition and subtraction problems, as possible answers rotate around on a disk.
     The Crimewave Sensor helps you learn how to estimate the answer to an addition/subtraction problem.
      The Light Spectrometer has you sort a pile of whole numbers into 5 different piles. (At the "expert" level, this is a game which will challenge anyone!)
     The Microchip Decoder shows a grid with points on it, each point labeled with a letter. You're to draw lines connecting certain points, and are then asked something about the result: is it a square, a rectangle, a parallelogram, or a rhombus, for example. There's a glossary where you can look up unfamiliar words.
     The Molecular Scope shows you a sort of crossword puzzle of numbers. It then gives you a word problem (for example, "Jim had 24 marbles and gave 10 of them away; how many did he have left), and you respond by putting arithmetic in squares on the puzzle (for example, 24 - 10 = 14).

     Carmen gives you no instruction in math other than the definitions in the glossary and a small "strategy" panel which explains how to add fractions having different denominators, provides addition and multiplication tables, and so on. The only math covered is some simple geometry (identifying figures), addition and subtraction of large and small numbers (including decimals), along with a little simple multiplication and division. The addition and subtraction of fractions is included, but not multiplication and division. There are no problems involving percentage.
     Any player may look up his score at any time. A teacher or parent can enter a special "administrative" mode, and there can see everyone's scores, and can customize the Atom Smasher questions.
     Many kids enjoy the clever graphics. So if you'd like your child to practice the things Carmen covers, this is a good choice.

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