I got an email (to “Sirs”), with a reference to a site that might be useful to teachers. No, it wasn’t unrelated spam; it was somebody’s attempt at making software to help students learn math, and every time I see one of these I resolve NOT to decide to make software to help people learn math.
You say you detect a mismatch between deeds and words? My intent with learnign flash is to know enough to put something together to find a way to be part of a *team* to do it right. Every one-person attempt I’ve seen has had fatal flaws. This one — the absolute first problem has a lovely picture of a trapezoid. Measurements are given, and the long end has a length of one and the short a length of four, and the height is 9.
I would *still* have issues with the “9” part being obviously shorter in real life than double the four, because the point of a picture is to make something *more* understandable and if it is showing me 9 being less than 4, that’s not more understandable. However, the 4 and the 1 … it’s honestly impossible.
I inquired of the author about it and sent a screen capture. I clicked for the answer, which worked if you plugged in the formula, and then clicked back and got a different problem that wasn’t impossible, but which used exactly the same drawing. I infer that the program randomly generates numbers for the measurements. Hey, then SKIP the picture. It’s procedure practice. DOn’t call it more than that.
Resource Room Dot Net Blog 
Posted on February 28, 2011
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