Primary Arithmetic
There's always been a push to making learning fun and friendly. Especially so on the ZX Spectrum , which was full of fun and friendly colours. So who better than to teach maths other than a clown and his balloon. Well , just about anyone really! Rose Software in 1982 were the people behind this piece of educational software that found it's way in to my house.
I was awful at maths, I would get the sum correct but the answer would be written in the wrong order, these days that would be diagnosed as number dyslexia, back in the 80's it was called being careless and would get you detentions and bad report cards! So to combat this my father bought me this. In a way it did help as the sum was carried out column by column so there was no way I could get the numbers in the wrong order. But it still did nothing to help the real problem once I was back in the classroom.
This program covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. But don't get excited it's the same screen each time. The concept is simple answer questions to add a new exciting feature to the balloon. You can do sums with single, double or triple digits, so it can become quite advanced (but still rewarded with Gormless the balloon as I lovingly called him.) It wasn't a game you admitted to having when your friends came over. But then it wasn't meant to be a shared experience , it was just you and Gormless.
Look! Gormless has a nose, are you excited yet? No , I don't think I was either. After each sum there is the option to quit, so yes, you can quit before Gormless does it's amazing party trick. I bet you can't guess what it is! There isn't an option to print out a certificate to show your parent either. Now I do appreciate this was back in 1982 and things were still in their infancy but even just changing the screen colour, or border colour or text colour would have kept you coming back just to see what the next screen would be....perhaps?
Now that was worth waiting for , wasn't it? Let's all wave goodbye to Gormless! But...Did this program help Julie with her maths? Well not really , it was more for pleasing my parents that I played this game. This might have been because I was at a really good school and the teachers were excellent at explaining the concepts behind maths. Perhaps my views of this program would be different if I'd seen it used in a classroom setting, or perhaps I was just too old to be using it.
But that said, why do I remember it so well if I didn't think it had any impact on me? Perhaps Gormless the balloon still has me under it's evil spell!
But that said, why do I remember it so well if I didn't think it had any impact on me? Perhaps Gormless the balloon still has me under it's evil spell!