[green-eyes]

Hi all,

I'm wanting to find out of others thoughts and experiences with this educational software program.

We had someone come out and run us though it and in theory, it looks and sounds fantastic! Yes, it's extremely expensive, but the program runs for all the childs school years and used for both my girls.

My concern is that it's a lot of money and you'd need to ensure that your kids are using it 30 mins x 3 times a week to see improvements. Therefore, I'm going to have to enforce it to be done over and above their school homework. What are my chances? I guess if you sent them to a tuitor once a week that would take up the same amount of time at around $60 a pop. So, I'm sure you're all wondering how much?? Well we are going with the payment program of $43 per week x 4 years (around 10K) for the kindy - year 10 program. You can get the 11-12 later if we want them.

The program has a free hotline that the child can call with any homework or assignment questions and they help them through it. That's the part I loved.

Anyway, I want to hear from others that have any experience with it. We have 10 days to pull out of it, if we change our mind.

[affectiion]

I think that whether or not you use this program will depend on age or year level - ie, if they're in grade one or thereabouts, you probably can't be sure they need it. For example, looking at the ages of your children, I would think it would be more useful to consult with the school and work with your kids where they need it.

And doing it over schoolwork is a mistake. Homework is (meant to be) set to align itself with what's being taught in school - it would be pointless doing units of division in the program while your kids are still working on learning multiplication in class.
If you were just using it to supplement school work (including homework) then fair enough. But not in place of.

There are some simpler (and much, much cheaper) alternatives - for example, Mathletics for Maths kids love and is certainly nowhere near the 10k mark.

This post has been edited by affectiion: 02/02/2013, 07:24 AM

[nlman]

Do / will your children need tutoring for most of their schooling?? That seems to be the premise.

I'm a teacher and theres is no way I would be spending $10,000 on a product I'm not sure I'll need. I would prefer to pay for tutoring if and when required.

[emnut]

We have it for DS (thanks to DH being the one who was home for the demo & DS managed to talk him into it). I don't recommend it at all. The "free" hotline was only free for the first year as they put a subscription for a year into it (DH also thought it was free on an ongoing basis but maybe this has changed) and after then you had to pay extra. It hasn't aligned itself to the work DS has been doing in class because he went well ahead, particularly in the maths part. In that first year that we had the hotline/tutor support it was never used so we didn't pay extra to have it.

Overall I don't think it did anything additional for DS's education that he couldn't get from the cheaper options such as Mathletics and now that we don't have the computer it was initially installed on haven't bothered over 6 months getting it installed on the new computer (you have to get them to instal on a new computer for you rather than giving you a way of self-installation - wouldn't surprise me if they hit you with a fee for that too).

[Luvmy4]

DON"T DO IT!!!!
Sounds great in theory but it is one expensive waste of time.
We have had no end of software trouble that took weeks to get fixed & cost us money
there are so many mistakes it the program its not funny
The tutors are never available
The tutoring is only free for the first year.
The programs are way too different to the curriculum & so much is not relevant especially in high school

In all it was an very very expensive lesson that we learnt.
Try mathletics or similar where you only have a small yearly fee (or in our case you get a membership through school)

Edited to ad... Please cancel & use your money to get one on one tutoring at relevant times if needed it is so much better than this waste of money program.

This post has been edited by Luvmy4: 02/02/2013, 12:25 PM

[Reader]

I don't have any experience with this, but my feeling is that if a child needs extra help, it should be from someone who understands the way that child learns, and the curriculum and the way it is taught in the classroom. It also helps if the tutor can talk to the classroom teacher.

[lsolaBella]

I would just do $10k worth of tutoring if needed when needed.

My sister had a tutor in year 12. Worked with her for 6wks, improved marks from below 50 to above 90.

My mum does tutoring. Most kids only need a term or two to bring them in line. It is not an on going constant cost.

Keep your money!