Based on a program I created in the 1980’s for the BBC Micro and used regularly with students in various topics – Nutrition, Hygiene, Science, Maths and Maintenance.

The program has been amended to suit today’s PC thanks to a software package created by a Mr. Russel who has been working with the BBC micro for some time.

The Challenge –

Collect 20 apples (skulls or chickens – depending on the topic) by working your way through the random maze. No two games are exactly alike.

Answer a question and if correct you collect the item and your score increases. Type ‘help’ for a clue.

The yellow apples give you some energy. Your energy decreases as you travel through the maze.

Your score is displayed and you have two chances to blast through the maze characters. You have the choice of three levels of difficulty in the maze layout.

Current topics available include ..

·        BODMAS

·        DECIMALS 1

·        DECIMALS 2

·        PERCENTAGES

·        NUMBER

·        STATISTICS

·        UNDERSTANDING NUMBER

·        FRACTIONS

·        BASIC COMPUTERS 1

·        BASIC COMPUTERS 2

·        HEALTH AND SAFETY 1

·        HEALTH AND SAFETY 2

I use these programs regularly with my students who are following courses leading to a qualification in Key Skills (level 1 and 2) or GCSE (Intermediate)  Maths.

So far the feedback has been positive. It’s nice to see a class of 17/18 year old students working on a program and trying to achieve a high score.

I imagine that younger students might get some fun out of it too!

The materials can be digitally projected for whole class interaction or used on separate PC’s where you have the opportunity to see how each student is progressing and give advice or talk over a question; the other students are busy trying to complete the game.

It also promotes some healthy competition between students. Who has the highest score ? What about scores among several classes? A little league table.

Most students are prepared to repeat the game to increase their score and possibly learn at the same time.

It’s not rocket science but I find it works in helping to promote motivation and making maths fun. Over the years I’ve been very surprised and saddened with the lack of basic maths skills among a fair proportion on my students.

And that includes some students who have achieved a pass in GCSE maths or Key Skills  (AON) level 2 !

If you are interested in sampling one of the programs and promise to give some feedback contact me at edukate_net@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll forward a copy of one of the Maths Maze programs in zip format to the first 10 respondents.

The files are quite small but get unzipped to .exe format so check out your college network access and permissions first – lots of institutions don’t like .exe files – they smack of virus attacks. The programs are clean . I’m not sure they will work on Apple machines.