Friday, January 28, 2011

TOS REVIEW ~Ten Marks

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Ten Marks is an online math program that helps students learn and practice math.  There were several aspects of this particular website that I liked.  The first being that it was more than just boring math problem after boring math problem.  The parent gets to set a reward for their student for completing a certain number of worksheets.  That gives the child motivation to keep going.  I was notified via email when my son earned his chosen reward.
But let me back up a little.  The child(ren) has their own account with personal login and password.  When the log in they see a screen similar to this one. This is my son's home page
The highlighted box tells him what his current worksheet is.  He can choose to click on the learn button and will get a new window with a a couple of different video lessons to watch.  If he feels confident in the concept he can proceed straight to the worksheet.  With each question he gets multiple choice answers.  I am not a huge fan of multiple choice on math, well I was when I was a student but not so much as a parent!  However, I felt the choices did drive the student to complete the full problem without giving too much away in the answer set.  For each question the child can request 3 hints and 1 video.  When you take a look at their lesson it will tell you per problem what help they required.  After each worksheet is completed the little persons at the bottom start to fill up.  My 7 year old loved this part.  You can see that he has all ready had some successes with certain concepts. As they work through the worksheets they can also unlock games that are just for fun.  Several times I found my guy logging in just to play the games.  Ten Marks also builds in tests.  My frustration with the test scheduling was that the tests were off to the side and overlooked by my kids, so by the time they realized they had tests in the side bar they had two or three.


Here is a screen shot from my daughters Algebra I lesson.


At just $10 a month, $49 for 6 months or $89 for 12 months it offers a good product for a good price.  I believe that you can use it as either a supplement or a complete program.  My oldest still wasn't convinced it was what would get her through Algebra I and the hints didn't always help her but she was WILLING to sit down to it every other day and do two worksheets, which for her is progress in math and made the product worth pursuing. 
Ten Marks offers its services to homeschoolers, parents and teachers.  There is even a free trial on their website.  So give them a try.

See what my other crewmates thought of Ten Marks here.

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Disclaimer: I received access to this website for free in exchange for an honest review.

1 comment:

WellWoman said...

I didn't know about this program, Tracy! Thanks for sharing it. My 10 just this morning told me she needs practice with multiplication. Something new to work with would be great!