Mathletics is an online educational website which launched in 2005.
The website places an emphasis upon Web 2.0 technologies to teach an interactive learning style which is designed to replicate the use of a personal tutor as to "address the balance between teacher-led instruction and independent, student-driven learning". Mathletics operates through a subscription-based system, offering access at an individual level as well as collectively as a school. Online users, acknowledged by the website as 'Mathletes', have access to math quizzes and challenges, and can participate in a real-time networked competition known as 'Live Mathletics'. Mathletics provides a customisable avatar for each individual user, which visually represents the player in the 'Live Mathletics' competitions. Alongside these learning interfaces, Mathletics grants individual users with the capacity to customise their avatar's clothing and general aesthetics are fueled by credits awarded to the user through the completion of quizzes and tasks.
Since 2007, Mathletics started World Maths Day to make maths exciting and engaging for all school-aged children. In 2010, World Maths Day created a Guinness World Record for the Largest Online Maths Competition. The upcoming World Maths Day will take place on March 23, 2024.
As of 2023, Mathletics caters to 3.2 million users worldwide and 14, 000 schools.
History
Mathletics was established as a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) application in 2005 by 3P Learning, catering for Australian schools. The website is structured to facilitate an engagement with students from K-12 educational level, and offers various visual resources in their interactive and online Web 2.0 appropriation of the Australian Curriculum. Though initially based around this curriculum, Mathletics broadened its offices as well as its student and teacher audiences to various other countries residing in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, adapting to those regions' various school curricula. The US and Canadian version of the website aligns with state-based educational standards including the Common Core and Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) from high school into kindergarten. The UK version of the website follows the various National Curricula within Britain, comprising Foundation Stage to Key Stage 5. Both the Middle Eastern and Asian versions of the website adopt and reflect International Curricula, and offer an entire translation of the English course.
Mathletics is one of numerous projects by 3P Learning, the same organisation behind Reading Eggs and Mathseeds.
Content
Web 2.0 Interface
Mathletics draws from the Web 2.0 technologies to foster their website as an "interactive e-learning resource, for schools, parents and children". Mathletics accredits the interactive aesthetic and function of their website to Web 2.0 format, which is typically characterised by its fluid accessibility to user-content creation and editing without prior knowledge of HTML programming language. With this, Mathletics takes from the features of Web 2.0 and implements them into their interface to assure that the website content can remain dynamic and regularly updated, and provides users with the option to edit and personalise their online profiles within the site without programming skills, as well as facilitate online competitions with other profiles.
Primary Students
Mathletics functions via an emphasis upon the bilateral capabilities of Web 2.0, which concerns interface and user interactivity. Mathletics heavily anchors their teaching styles within the "Primary" section of their website through the lens of 'visual learning'; employing a vast array of colours combined with cartoon imagery to create a "captivating" website aesthetic in an effort to appease the juvenile temperament of students under twelve years old. The site offers animated tutorials and learning support that display animated adolescent characters offering mathematic tips and answers to questions. The website currently offers 1200 unique questions, that have been individually tailored to suit each user's mathematic comprehension. Students are encouraged to participate in Mathematic activities which host up to 20 questions related to a certain topic. Once a student answers a question, the website recognises its completion and then adapts to the "student's progress in understanding", leading to questions that may be more complex in difficulty. At the completion of each topic, students are offered the opportunity to take a 'Topic Test' which summates the hardest questions in the past activities.