It's not always easy for math or science teachers to find high quality, instructional software that can tutor kids above and beyond the lessons they learn at school. The fact that math, science and technology are so specialized makes it more difficult for programmers to put together software that contains accurate and high quality content.
That's not to say that there isn't software out there for math and science students that is high quality and valuable, however usually that software costs a small fortune.
Luckily, there is a software company that not only sells an excellent math, science and technology software product to schools, but also gives away the fully functioning product to students for in-home use only. That software is called Yenka
, from Crocodile Clip software. Yenka is a highly interactive, visual application that teaches students fundamental concepts in mathematics, science, technology and computing. The software is like having a free in-home tutor for children to carefully explore and learn about important and practical ideas in these subject areas.
Yenka First Page
When you first launch Yenka, a screen comes up that lets you choose a subject. This isn't part of any software setup, it's just so that the software can place you immediately in the area of the program that you're interested in. You have the opportunity to switch to a different subject at any time while you're in the program. The four subjects covered in great detail by Yenka are mathematics, science, technology and computing.
Yenka - free software for learning geometry.
Mathematics includes three areas, 3D Shapes, Statistics and Coordinates. Each section is called a "product." The product shown above is the 3D Shapes application that lets you build complete models using the available tools. These tools offer ways to build or color shapes on the design grid. You can rotate objects, adjust size, and basically manipulate them in any way you can imagine using this software. this is a great way for children to visually observe what different shapes look like in 3 dimensional formats.
Instructions and Lessons
The most important question any parent or teacher has about any educational software product is now much it actually informs or teaches. Luckily, Yenka succeeds in this regard. In every "product" section, there are both online and offline areas where students can make use of valuable lessons and explanations. It's like having a personal tutor right at home.
The Statistics Product
The statistical product within Yenka is very impressive. It includes areas where you can graph out actually data frequencies and distributions, put together presentations, build charts and graphs, and best of all you can play one of the long list of probability games that teach important statistics concepts. In the game shown in the picture above, students roll dice and watch as the events get logged and distributed in a graphical format.
The Yenka product chooser.
In addition to mathematics, there's also the very comprehensive science product. This section of the application is broken up into seven general categories including electricity & magnetism, light & sound, inorganic chemistry and more. Selecting any of these topics takes you to an area where there are volumes of lessons, instructions, and "hands-on" interactive features where kids will feel like they're sitting in a laboratory running real tests and experiments.
The graphics that make up these lab experiences are fairly good quality, but even better they are animated and respond to user interaction. This lets the student tweak values and test out different ideas just like a real scientist would. Below the animation, the scrolling text walks the student through the lesson and explains the experiment and what the results mean.
Yenka Main Menu
Each time you go back to the main menu, you'll find everything is easy enough to locate by selecting "Change Product." This lets you change between science, math and other subjects. However, it can be difficult to navigate the software sometimes, especially if you're in the middle of one of the animated lessons and you want to go back to the main menu. As a hint, if you ever need to go back to the menu, just click on the Yenka logo.
Computers and Programming
Another very fun section of the application is the programming area where students learn how to construct programs in sequential sections where the next step depends upon the results of the step before it. This area is a lot of fun because students get to make an animated character perform different actions by writing a "program" for those actions.
Technology and Gears
Another great example of an animated and interactive graphics lesson like this is the Gears application inside the Technology section. "Gears" allows students to fabricate different gear configurations and then observe the revolutions per minute of each gear.
These are only a few of the impressive, interactive tutorial lessons, games and instructions throughout this free software package. Other than the navigation that can take some getting used to, the overall quality of this program places it into the commercial domain. However, it's important to be sure that you're only using it at home and for non-commercial reasons. If that is your situation, then download Yenka now and give it a try for free today.
Please note: Yenka is freeware for home use only
Subjects on Yenka include: Fractions, Percentages, Ratios and Proportion, Geometry and Measures, Two-Dimensional Shapes, Three-Dimensional Shapes, Measures, Transformations and Symmetry, Statistics, Data Collection and Types of Data, Data Presentation and Analysis, Probability and Chance, Computing tutorials, Games design, Inputs and outputs, Loops, Monitoring and feedback, Procedures and functions, Simple processes, Light and Sound, Electricity and Magnetism, Motion, Analogue Electronics, Basic Circuits, Digital Electronics, Electronic Projects, Gears, PIC Programming, PIC Projects, Systems and Control and much more.
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