Monkey Tales Software Suite

I purchased the suite of Monkey Tales games to use in a school setting, in the Individual Tuition Unit at YTS Boys' Senior School in London, with the first game purchased at the end of last term. (June 2013)

The pupils found the game engaging, and wanted to play it frequently. I started off using the game intensively, as it was helping students engage with maths; who usually do minimal work in a standard classroom environment.

I found myself having a problem with the game however - as an educator, I require data on progress and useful feedback. I could find no way of objectively measuring progress, as the games in the series do not record this data, as far as I can see - which sums students were getting right, which ones they were getting wrong, their overall progress. 

In contrast I have been using the Big Brains Timez Attack software, as this provides me with the data that the school admin requires, and a clear parameter for measuring the progress of each student. 

Without this data, I cannot justify use of Monkey Tales as a 'strong' tool, as I have no way to objectively measure student progress at the end of each session from within the game.

I also found that the 'game' sections between the maths exercises took too long - our lessons are short - 40 minutes - and the number of minutes of 'maths time' in a 40 minutes gaming slot was simply not enough, and this meant I ended up stopping students from using Monkey Tales, and only make the game available during 'free periods' when students can do unstructured learning as they wish.

Monkey Tales, from my perspective, would be better of the 'maths' sections were more frequent, and if there was some way to collect and print out/record the data generated as the students progress through the game series.

Overall, however, the software is excellent, and is very popular with my students. They definitely feel deprived by not being allowed to play this game series more frequently.

I now use it as 'reward time' for when students reach a particular target level in their learning.