Algebra Touch: All Ages

This was once a great app that focused on task fluency. It was almost an endless game that could be used as a fidget spinner, but which drilled in good algebra habits. Later some curriculum developers got into the act, and pretty much ruined it. It became a vehicle for demonstrating a handful of concepts, but it lost the ability to do endless speed drills. That’s a tragedy because teaching concepts is what teaches are good at and drilling task fluency is what games are good at. Those versions kept pushing you to the next level instead of allowing you to drill randomized problems. The latest version is really refined, but I got the prompt to leave a review before I got to see if the if the endless stream of harder problems is back

Wow! Best math game I have EVER found! I never understood algebra and felt embarrassed that I didn’t know, but now I am starting to feel so confident! All thanks to this game. Thank you!! They show you all the steps in comprehensible bite sized pieces and work you up! It has a feature (brilliant by the way, guys!) so that you cannot make a “wrong” move. You will always get the correct answer - even if, like me, you make it more complicated for yourself getting there - and that is soo encouraging!!! Also, there’s no pressure to this game. They do have a mini challenge (which IS timed) at the end of every lesson chunk, but even that never lets you fail! :) If you don’t get the answer in time there’s no punishment, no shaming, it just gives you another problem (and another and another) until you get it right! So if you’re like me and seriously panic when you’re timed, this design allows you the time to realize that hey just cause you’re not perfect at it right away, they’re not gonna fail you. It teaches you to calm yourself down look ahead to solving the problem with confidence, focus, and peace. I really could not recommend it more! Thank you to whoever helped create this game. (It made my day!)

The pre-generated problems work GREAT. Really excellent way to teach algebra in a way that is AMAZINGLY fast. However, entering your own problems is practically useless. The app will randomly drop large sections of the equation. For example, try to factor: x^2 - 5x - 14 There’s no way to enter exponents in the calculator keyboard, so you have to do x*x to get x^2. While trying this problem, I’ve seen the app randomly erase everything except for x^2, which may lead one to think the other terms had somehow magically canceled out. It just makes me really sad that the self-entry mode is so useless. Another example: it doesn’t know how to convert 7x*x into 7x^2. This is probably the best algebra teaching method I’ve ever seen, and also works great for refreshing your memory if you’ve forgotten your algebra rules, but otherwise it’s only useful once you’ve finished all the lessons, which anybody can do inside of an hour or two.