Good morning and Happy Weekend! I hope that you had an amazing week. My week was great, and busy! 😂 I am pretty sure it will be like that until June 8. Then, things calm down.
I wanted to say thank you for all of the interest you have shown in Acalympics! Wow! I have gotten some great ideas. I have always been asked some really good questions, so I wanted to take a minute to answers those.
1. What exactly is Acalympics? What is this website designed to do? I came up with the idea for Acalympics.com when I was in 6th grade. You can read more about the specifics on about page for this blog or you can click here Acalympics about tab. In a nut shell, I did a lot of research on the importance of memorizing math facts and how it benefits your brain. I wanted to come up with a fun way for students to work on this.
2. How do I play on Acalympics? Choose any team, and then select either math or Spanish, then, click the play button . Here is a link to Acalympics .
Bock, J. (2018). A Picture of Acalympics After Reset. [digital image] CC BY-NC
There is no time limit, so if you need to use a piece of paper or pencil to compute your answers, that is just fine. Pick any team you want. You can’t hurt any teams score, but answering incorrectly. The goal is just to practice! I have done some pretty informal research oh if Acalympics is effective and I have been shocked by how well it works. Hopefully this summer I can get a formal research study up on Acalympics .
3. How does the scoring work? You earn points by answering questions correctly. You earn more points the higher up in level you go. This was done so people wouldn’t just repeat single digit addition over and over. 😉 Also, the medals will be announced for the top 3 teams for each board every Friday evening at 8pm, (or 7pm when we are off daylight savings time). I wanted the teams not to get so far behind the leader that they quit trying. Everyone starts fresh at 0 after the medals are virtually awarded. You can always check the medals here Acalympics medalists .
4. How do I formulate the questions and how do I decide the order? I frequently visit the Virginia Dept. Of Education to get a list of the math standards and the order they have listed. For Spanish, I have been given access to our Spanish Teachers quizlet site. I make the questions from her lists, in the order she has.
5. Do I plan to add additional subjects? YES! I am working with my piano teacher to get a music theory category added. In addition, I plan to extend Spanish and Math, and add French. I want to add a login in system too. That way the top scorers can be highlighted as well and daily challenges can be added (challenges that gives a reward to your team).
6. Is Acalympics free? Yes, I have also worked hard on also keeping it ad-free so schools can use it.
I hope that covers all of the questions I have gotten. I just wanted to thank everyone that has supported Acalympics. Thank you to all of the teachers that have used Acalympics and also to the teams that are consistently competing. I really love to get feedback, and have loved getting all of your ideas! If you have any additional questions or feedback, please please email me info@acalympics.com.
Acalympics.com 