Study Ladder is free for schools. Teachers have access to all of the resources; students have full access during school hours with limited homework access from home (3 activities per day), unless a home subscription is purchased. However, students have unlimited access to Study Ladder’s Rapid Recall because you are not required to login. I have used Study Ladder’s Rapid Recall twice a day, four times a week over the last Term and a half and I have witnessed a remarkable improvement in students’ accuracy of number facts.

Each Rapid Recall set is modelled on the SMART board. Students share tips and tricks with each other in order to develop multiple ways of addressing the same problem. Students then choose the method which suits them best. During Rapid Recall lessons, I use SMART Notebook software, go to the gallery and drag across a timer. The timer can be enlarged for students with vision impairment.

I then instruct students to begin; they complete the problems and then record the time taken. Classroom computers are not essential as all activities can also be printed. An added feature of the print outs, is that the answers appear at the bottom of the page. Students simply fold back the answers during their activity and then upon completion, they mark their own work which gives them automatic feedback in reference to their progress.  For older students, I would recommend that students view the questions from the SMART board rather than from a printed sheet, in order to reduce our carbon footprints.

Study Ladder works on Apple Mac’s but does not work on iPhones or iPads due to Apple’s decision not to allow Adobe FLASH to run on these portable devices. However, classroom computers are not essential as all activities can also be printed.

I also use the SMART recorder to record short video tutorials for students and parents which are uploaded onto our class wiki site.