USING A MATH GAME TO IMPROVE BASIC MATH SKILLS

This game aims in improving students’ basic math skills. Poor basic math skills lead in a lot of students leaving school and the creation of badly qualifies citizens. Many researchers have addressed this problem but this paper tries a different approach. When looking on how familiar students are with mobile touch screen devices and how many time they spent on them, the question needs to be asked if this development can be integrated into the learning process. An increase of basic math skills can only be accomplished by motivating the students and making them compete with each other. “Color switch” is a famous mobile game with millions of downloads in Android market and App store. Color switch is the base of our game but altered in a more math way. The student has to tap the screen in order to make his ball move up (in our game the ball represents a number) but he has to choose from which part of the multicolor ring should the ball pass (different color represent different number). So the students will be able to practice basic math skills by playing, in their mobile phone, wherever they want to and whenever they want to. This game has different levels that gives the player the opportunity to practice his addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, root and exhibitor skills. The game can also be easily modified so the level and type of math acts can be changed. In this way, it could be easily used by teachers, as a homework for their class. In this research, the game is played by 136 students of a Greek primary school and their motivation towards math as long as their improvement in basic math is measured.