MathSlate

What is MathSlate?

MathSlate is an electronic flash card for the practice of elementary math skills. Pressing the Next Problem button will display a random problem. Pressing the Show Answer button will then display the correct answer.

After a problem is displayed, you have the option of drawing the answer on the screen with a finger. Double tapping the screen will clear the handwritten answer as will pressing the Show Answer or Next Problem buttons.

You have a choice of addition only, subtraction only or a random mix of both. You can choose to limit the highest number used to 5, 10, 20 or 100. When performing subtraction, the answers will always be positive or zero.

You can also choose to display only multiplication, only division or a random combination of both. Here you can limit the maximum numbers used to 5, 10 or 12. When choosing division, the answers will always be whole numbers.

The preferences page also allows you a choice of five different fonts, five font colors and a choice of background color including an inverted “blackboard” mode.

In portrait orientation MathSlate presents problems in the standard “stacked” elementary way. When rotated into landscape mode, MathSlate will display problems in linear fashion.

Times Table Mode

MathSlate also features a Times Table Mode for the focused learning of times tables. When in this mode, any multiplier from 1 to 10 can be chosen. If forward is selected, MathSlate will then cycle through all the multiplicands, in order, from 1 to 10 (skip-counting). When practiced enough in skip counting with a particular multiplier, skip-counting may also be done in reverse. Once a student is comfortable skip-counting, they may switch to the "random" option for choosing the multiplicand.

Quiz Mode

Quiz Mode allows a student to test themselves with "quizzes" in numbers of 5, 10, 20 or 50. Any of the operations and limits described above can be used. They can view the last ten scores on the score sheet, in terms of correct/total, percentages, times and colored stars. The quiz scores are also displayed on a bar graph to show progress. The current quiz, or the entire record of quizzes, can be reset at any time.

While math games can be very useful in enticing students to take an interest in learning the basics of math, it takes a lot of practice to become proficient. MathSlate gets down to business in a straight forward manner using an uncluttered interface.

Although MathSlate is relatively simple in design and purpose, attention has been paid to detail. For example, the fonts have been customized for clarity, uniformity and positioning accuracy. MathSlate runs natively on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Buttons to the sides of the image below will navigate you through a slide show.