Indian Math Online - Blog

Changing the frequency of scheduled assignments

Some parents have asked if they could change the 'frequency' of scheduled assignments (Practices, Assessments).

The short answer is YES - and it is quite simple.

NOTE: You must be a paying subscriber to be able to change the frequency of scheduled assignments.

Steps to follow -

1. Log into www.indianmathonline.com with your email (parent's email) address and password
2. From the screen that displays, look at the section called "Actions"
3. Click on the link "List Practice Schedules" (or List Assessment Schedules, or List Reading Schedules)
4. From the screen that displays, click on the action "Edit" corresponding to the schedule you wish to change
5. From the screen that displays, look for the field "How often would you like to....?" and change the frequency to any choice you wish.

NOTE 1: If a reading schedule has finished, you might not be able to change the frequency. You can define a NEW one as you wish.

NOTE 2: Feel free to 'experiment' with the frequency a few times to find the 'right' balance for your child - we recommend to parents that they spread the assignments out at least 2 days apart so that the Child does not feel overwhelmed by the intensity of assignments.

NOTE 3: By default the system sets the frequency to "Every Week" to ease in the diverse children that use our program.

How do I clear assignments from my display?

A number of parents have asked us how to clear assignments (Assessments, Practices) from the display. Reasons for doing this vary from deleting older assignments to clearing up assignments so that the children don't feel overwhelmed.

Here are the step by step instructions for deleting assignments:

1. Login to www.indianmathonline.com with your email address and password (as the Parent)
2. From the screen that displays, look at the left most column and 'click' the check-box next to the assignments (Practices or Assessments) that you wish to delete
3. Once you have selected the assignments, look for the action "Delete selected rows" at the top of the table and click on that action.

The above sequence of steps should take care of deleting assignments you do not wish to see in your display (permanently).

Difference between regular (login) password and security password

There is confusion amongst some subscribers between the Login password and Security password (the one our program requires you to create or use for completing Payment related transactions).

We will not disclose the rules behind the use of these two things - the only thing we will say is this: they are different.

Login password is the password you use along with your email address when you login (at www.indianmathonline.com) to our application.

Security password is the one you enter whenever you have to complete a payment related transaction inside our program.

If you need further help, you can contact us via the regular support screen within the program.

Use of multiple metric systems within our program

For the most part, our questions use the measurement system that is widely used in the American system. Once in a while, we do get in questions that use measurement system that do not use American system; instead they use metric system used by British or India or other Asian countries.

We promptly hear from parents about this and they demand that we correct them and they lecture us that we are confusing their children.

We agree that it is a bit confusing. That admission aside, let us take a different perspective - your children are going to grow up to compete for jobs with children across the globe {if you haven't read the book The World is Flat, I highly recommend you purchase a copy or borrow from a library and read it}.

So, learning a metric system that is used in a part of the world that your child is likely to compete is not a bad thing, after all!. Did we devise our program intentionally for you to learn these new metric systems? No! But having encountered a different metric system in a few questions, it is not a bad way to learn a few new things! Is it?

After all, you are subscribing to a program being developed by a bunch of Americans with help from Chinese and Indians (who have lived in various parts of the Europe before arriving in America) and Hispanic Americans!

Changing the enrolled Grade level of my child

Many parents ask us (sometimes complain too! - see note at the end!) if they should move their child to a higher grade (or lower their child a grade or two) if their child is getting through the math problems easily (or having difficulty with the practices or assessments).

Here are some suggestions to guide you through this: 

1. If your child continuously scores Good or Excellent (proficiency rating as determined by our program) in practices and assessments for a period of 3 weeks or more (assuming a minimum of 3 assignments a week), then it would be an appropriate time for you to consider moving your child to the next higher Grade.
2. On the contrary, if your child struggles with proficiency rating of Average or below for a period of two (2) weeks or more (assuming a minimum of 2 assignments a week), then it would be an appropriate time for you to consider moving your child to one or two grades lower. We only recommend this in the spirit of not letting your child lose interest in math as well as not letting your child lose confidence in math. As with any subject / area of study, you want to build on success.

One of the features (we think it is a cool feature) of our program is that you are NOT constrained to keep your child locked in a particular Grade. We frequently hear from parents that say that our program has helped their child(ren) test their child's math knowledge on topics that they have not yet studied formally in school.

Now to the steps involved in changing your child's enrolled grade in our program:

• Login (at www.indianmathonline.com) as the parent (with your email address and your password)
• From the screen that displays, click on the menu "My Account" (you can find the menu at the top of the page)
• From the screen that displays, click on your child's name
• From the screen that displays, select a different Grade in the drop-down for the field "Select a Grade to enroll your child"
• Once you have selected a new Grade, click on the action / button "Save"

Once you have "Saved", the system will use the newly selected Grade to assign future assignments for your child. Please allow 4-6 hours for this change to take effect - the background process that is responsible for assigning assignments runs frequently and will recognize this change and will do the necessary "thing".

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DISCLAIMER: The recommendations and suggestions made above are NOT scientific, but based on practical use of our program. We are working on enhancing our program to use intelligence based data to recognize when a child should be moved to the higher Grade (automatically) or downgraded (with the assistance of the parent). Until such time, the above recommendation are just that. So, please don't flood us with emails such as "you said in that blog entry that ..." or "we did this on your advise..." . We are providing our "collective" judgment and we think you will benefit from this collective experience.

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(And now to those complaining - if you think it is a waste of time - I am sorry, if you think it is a waste of time for your child to practice math problems and you find out that your child is getting through the problems easily - we didn't intentionally devise the program that way!)

Indian Math Online and Grade K

A number of parents ask us frequently if our program supports curriculum for Kindergarten. The answer is mixed - Yes and No.

No - because, we do not formally have a grade in the drop-down (during enrollment) called "K" (or Grade K).

Yes - because, we support math problems under the topics Addition and Subtraction (one-digit addition and one-digit subtraction; and if your child is adventurous and a fast learner, similar to my 7-year old daughter, we have 2-digit additions and subtractions to keep them challenged).

So, whenever, we get this question, we recommend to parents that they choose "Grade 1" and focus their child on the topics Addition and Subtraction; and gradually introduce other topics. [This is typically how schools in India keep the young child engaged!]

That said, we are focusing some of our content development time in the first half of 2009 to formally introduce content for grade "K". We will keep you posted when the content is available for "K".

Personally, IMO has worked for my 7-year old when she was in "K" - and we are starting my almost 5 year old on IMO. I will keep you all posted on how the second one does - her challenge might be 'patience'!

Indian Math Online and Safari (browser)

A number of you have asked if you can use Mac Safari with Indian Math Online.

The short answer is NO!

Here is the reason -

Indian Math Online requires browsers to support Math Markup Language (the ability to display complex mathematical notations). Our testing so far has shown that Safari does not support Math ML.

That is the bad news!

The good news is - you can download Firefox for Mac. Once you have installed Firefox, you will need to download the proper math ml font support. Here is the link for that.

We have tested the above approach - if after trying, you still have difficulty, please write to us at support@indianmathonline.com and we will try to troubleshoot further!

How can Indian Math Online help my child if she/he gets a question incorrect?

This is a common question we get from our parents - when my child gets a question incorrect, how can Indian Math Online (IMO) help?

Currently, there are two ways IMO can help a child when he or she gets a question incorrect:

1. Each question is categorized into a Topic within a Grade. For each topic, we have provided a written explanation of the topic along with examples. We refer to this concept within our program as "Solution Explanation" (SE). A parent (or the child) can access the SE for a particular topic by following these steps:
   • Login as the Parent
   • From the screen that displays, click on the 'View Results' for a the particular assignment
   • From the screen that displays, click on the link "Total Number Incorrect". You will find the notation SE displayed next to it and clicking it will prompt you to either save the document or open it.
2. In addition to the concept explanation, we have also developed multi-media illustration of each topic. We refer to these as learning or reading assignments within our program. These multi-media concepts are developed using Adobe Flash and you Adobe Flash Viewer to view them. You can view samples at www.indianmathonline.com/samples

Obviously, there is an alternate method you could use - which is outside the scope of our program. You (as the parent) could print the math problem and take it to your child's math teacher or tutor and ask for assistance. Of course our goal with the program is to 'empower' the parents such that the answers are within our program (see notes below). If you feel there are one or two questions that we can get our math teachers to explain in detail for you, we are happy to consider that and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

NOTE 1: These learning aids are NOT available as part of the IMO Basic Subscription plan.

NOTE 2: I mention above that "Currently" we have two forms of learning aids - well, we are actively working on adding "Step-By-Step" instructions for each of the question - in other words, we intend to provide one way to solve each math problem. This feature is expected to be released some time in the coming months (the scale of our database makes it tough to release for all grades!)

How do I subscribe to Indian Math Online after completing the Free Trial?

Many parents have asked how to subscribe to Indian Math Online after their child has completed the Free trial period. Here are the step to complete the subscription process!

1. First, Login at www.indianmathonline.com as the parent with your email address and password (there is NO need to re-register)
2. From the screen that displays, click on the action / button "Begin Your Child's Full Subscription"
3. Follow the on-screen instructions in selecting the subscription plan and complete the payment process

We thank you in advance for your interest in our program and hope that your child continues to enjoy the challenges of Math!

Indian Math Online and Internet Explorer - Known Problems

If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer and are having difficulty opening assignments, please read the document at the following link.

Intent of Free Trial - One Parent - One Child

Indian Math Online currently allows only one child to be enrolled under 'free trial' for a given parent. The intent of our program is to enable the parent and the child to test drive our program, the mechanics of the software and the rich content of the program.

However, if the Parent insists on having more than one child under the free trial, we recommend the parent create a separate email address and enroll a second child using that second email address.

We warn you that consolidating disparate free trial accounts into one later poses significant technical problems and could be frustrating!

Cancelling your subscription to Indian Math Online

Unlike other programs, canceling subscription to Indian Math Online is quite simple. There are no restrictions on when to cancel or penalties for early cancellation. We also do not offer refund for early cancellation - we have tried to keep the management of the program simple!

If you paid your subscription using your credit card, please follow these steps for canceling your subscription:

1. First Login to Indian Math Online at www.indianmathonline as the parent with your email address and passsword
2. From the screen that displays, click on the menu "My Account" {look at the top of the screen for the menu}
3. From the screen that displays, click on the button / action "Cancel" next to the child for which you wish to cancel the subscription and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the cancellation process.

After you follow the above directions, if you still have questions, please email us at support@indianmathonline.com.

Can't open a Practice or Assessment?

Are you just starting to use Indian Math Online and experiencing issues with Practices or Assignments? If so, make sure that the child is logged into IMO, not the parent.  From there the child should click the "Start" button next to the assignment they want to take.  Then click "Begin Assessment/Practice" and the assignment should open immediately.  If your computer asks you to save/open a ".do" file, it means you need to install the Math Player.  Download and install it from here:

http://members1.indianmathonline.com/MathPlayerSetup.exe

Still having problems? You may also need the MathML Fonts support file.  Download and install it from here:

http://web.mit.edu/atticus/www/mathml/mit-mathml-fonts-1.0-fc1.msi

Once you have these installed, try opening a Practice or an Assessment lesson again, and this time it should open the assignment automatically. You will not be asked to open or save any ".do" file at all. When your child is finished with the assignment, be sure to click "Save and Exit" at the bottom, and your results will be available shortly.

We have listened to your feedback!

A number of Parents have written to us suggesting that we provide some form of "learning materials". These suggestions stem from the fact that IMO system is able to pinpoint areas of weaknesses in their children's math proficiency.

Well, we have listened - we have embarked on developing these learning materials and integrate them into the software so that we can provide a closed loop (Assess->Learn->Practice) experience for the child.

Look for more announcements on this topic in the coming months!

Why is Indian Math Online based on a national standard from India? Why use a standard?

Indian Math Online is based on the National Math Standards of India, which define by grade level what math concepts students should have mastered.

We based IMO on India's National Standard for two simple reasons:

1) The US has 50 different math standards – one for each state – and the standards are regularly changed as student performance falls short
2) The Indian standard is reasonable, consistent, builds on knowledge gained in prior years and doesn't change.

Algebra was invented nearly 2,000 years ago by Persian mathematician Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi (see picture below). It hasn't changed much since then and so a standard of what one should know about Algebra seems likewise unnecessary to change very frequently.

Regrettably, that is not the case in America, where State standards are regularly changed under pressure from Teacher's Unions, with the tacit endorsement of textbook publishers (hey...they can sell new books) and politicians eager to look good to one side or the other.

At IMO, we have analyzed the Indian National Math Standard, seen how well Indians do in professions heavy in math content, visited Indian schools to see the results for ourselves and concluded that India has the right standard.

So, our standards are different than US states (and much higher, by the way) and we differ in our view as to how frequently assessments should be made. In the US, students are tested for proficiency once a year in a high-stakes exam.

With IMO, students are assessed weekly, their weaknesses diagnosed and practice problems assigned. Assess, diagnose, practice, practice, practice, and then, assess again - all based on a solid, stable math standard.

That is our simple process for ensuring our student customers become proficient in the most important language of the 21st century - MATHEMATICS.