The BBC’s take on Heymath
By Murray Bourne, 29 Jul 2006
On 25th July I had a surge of visitors to my posts on Heymath (Friedman & HeyMath - but how do you get in? and Heymath Update - I'm in.
I was intrigued why there was a surge and now I know. On the 24th July, BBC ran an article How maths can be great fun by Soutik Biswas in Madras, describing Heymath and its growing success.
The article quotes some students giving glowing reviews:
Today, Ramnandan, a student of Padma Seshadri School in the southern Indian city of Madras (Chennai), is a champion number cruncher and in love with maths.
"The lessons are practical and logical. I don't lose concentration. I remember concepts more clearly," he says.
And from Singapore, where many schools have adopted Heymath, Deborah Chan of Methodist Girls School says:
The step-by-step working shown in the lessons has helped me in the understanding of the various topics
And another:
Sumedha Biswas says the animation is 'awesome'
Heymath is growing:
Today, the company sends out its lessons to more than 60 schools all over the world. The company charges each student about $100 a year for its lessons. In India, it offers schools its lessons at 600 rupees ($13) a year.
On the background to Heymath, the article says:
The effort was to retain traditional knowledge and pedagogy in teaching and save teachers time with tailor-made lessons.
For students, the challenge was to make maths relevant to real life experiences and teach the subject differently using multi-media and interactivity.
But it is this last bit that I could not find when I had a look around Heymath. I looked hard to find any "real life experiences" and all I came across was basically pure algebra.
So do any of you use Heymath? Do you like it? Does it relate to your real life?
I am happy to be proved wrong about Heymath - good luck to them if they manage to make mathematics interesting and fun.
Be the first to comment below.
