Reviews

Products and services that have been reviewed

Note taking with Ease on a Rocketbook Everlast Reusable Notebook

 

Using a notebook to journal

Using a notebook to journal

 

If you are you would be like me and have tons of note books of different sizes to record different notes on.  Being an avid writer I have notebooks to record different things. I record milestones for each kids,  ideas that I have, topics that I am researching on and recipes which I am interested to try out on a later date. Notebooks would pile up in my cupboard after use. Filled with memories/notes they are too precious to discard and I’m fast running out of storage space for them. There has to be a better option to getting new physical note books.

 

The Contents of the Rocketbook Package

The Contents of the Rocketbook Everlast Package

 

The kind people  from Rocketbook  notice this storage issue that I had and they sent down a set of their  Everlast Rocketbook via DHL for me to try out. Now  I don’t need to worry about not having space in the cupboard to store yet another notebook. Yeah me!!

The package came with the following items

  1. The Everlast Notebook where one can write 30+ pages of notes.
  2. A  microfibre  cloth which one only has to wet and the notes that you have written can be effortlessly wiped off and the page reused.  (Do note to ensure that the page  is completely dry before writing on it or – else you may damage the surface in the long run)
  3. A Pilot FriXion pen for use with the notebook.
Writing with the Pilot FriXion pen

Writing with the Pilot FriXion pen

The  Everlast Rocketbook allows you to have access to your notes online by having your notes stored directly to your choice cloud storage device via the Rockbook App . You can also pre-set which folders to drop off different which set of notes by choosing the icons at the bottom of each page before you scan in the page using the App which can be downloaded from Google Play/ Apple App Store.

The Rocketbook App

The Rocketbook App

 

Road Testing the  Everlast 

Initially I gave  the  Everlast to Monkey Boy to test out. I thought that it would be most appropriate for him to try out since he is studying 10 subjects in Secondary school and there is need to take lots of notes on a daily basis.  He had fun road testing it at home and  gave me his opinion on it.

In his words he mentioned that it was a nifty tool for writing notes and there is no hassle in re-organising what was written however it would be a useless item in school. It would be impossible to do any scanning via the app as they are banned from using mobile devices in class during curriculum time. He also found having to manually scan each page quite cumbersome.  He suggested that the developers of the notebook look into how to upgrade it  into a  self scanning device where one only needs to  press a button on the page for the content to be automatically upload to the cloud storage.  That would certainly be a nifty function if it existed.

The scanned note I wrote

The scanned note I wrote

I did my own testing of the Everlast and enjoyed how easy it was to convert the notes written into PDF and stored virtually.  One just need to ensure that there is ample storage in the cloud to store all the digital notes and a good  WI-FI connection to upload the scanned pictures.

The Rocketbook Everlast retails for USD $34 and you can more information on it from their website.

Disclaimer: I was sent the RocketBook Everlast Notebook for review. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

 

Learning Maths with Smartick

 

Smartick Login Page

If you are looking for a Maths online program for extra practice here is one that you can consider. Smartick is an online maths helper which you can consider if you are looking for a Maths program for you kids to try out. Targeted at kids between 4-14 yr old this program aims at regular/ daily 15 min sessions for kids to keep the kids occupied and practicing Maths.

The Parental Dashboard

The Parental Dashboard

We were given a 3 month trial of the online program for Monkey boy, Doggie boy and Tiger girl to try out. I made 3 student accounts for them and set them to go test out the programs.  Tiger girl was the most enthusiastic student out of the 3 as her brothers soon dropped off doing the Maths sessions as they were too caught up by their own school homework.

The Starting Video

The Starting Video

Each session starts with an introductory  video which gives the learner an idea of the topic that they would be covering for the 15 min session that day. Most of the time the kids just click off the video and go straight to the exercise as they comment that it is rather boring and long winded. They rather go “hand- on” than listen to a “How-to-solve” video.

A maths question

A maths question

The learner has to go through a series of questions to get ticks which fill up as they go along. When they bar is full they have completed all their maths question for the day and they can now go on to virtual world to play some simple games.

The back end results

The back end results

As you can see above in the parental dashboard Tiger girl’s result for a session is shown. The number of exercises that she has done in the different areas are also stated together with the time taken to solve each question.

Areas of maths that were covered

Areas of maths that were covered by Tiger girl

The percentage of each  topics that  was covered was stated in the graph above. With one glance I can see clearly her progress through the various topics.

My thoughts

Having reviewed a few different Maths online programme I was interested to know how different Smartick was as compared to those out there. Here is my take on it.

Pros

  • Daily emails reminders if the child did not complete his session of the day.
  • Email to notify that the child had completed his/her session and the results of that particular session
  • Very responsive customer service who check in with you to see if they can give you a better trial experience.
  • Awards / Diplomas are given to the child when they completed certain topics.
  • Bite size 15 min session are good for kids who have short attention spans

CONS

  • Not being able to adjust the topics being practice on a daily basis  and  following the local school curriculum for the level.  Some of the topics that the kids were given were not taught in the schools nor do they find them interesting.
  • The games inside the program were considered ” lame” by the boys and too childish as they seem to be catering for kids under 8. The characters/avatars  too were not interactive like most games that they have played before.
  • There is no allowance to do more of a particular type of question on a certain topic when the child repeatedly gets the similar questions on that topic wrong.
  • There is no differentiated difficulty level in questions which will cater for children of various activities.
  • It not suitable as a teaching tool to reinforce concepts that were prior taught in school or introducing new Maths concepts to the child.

In all Smartick does make a good supplementary Maths program if you just want your child to practice Maths daily with minimal supervision.

 

Disclaimer:  I was given a 3 month subscription to Smartick for my kids to test it out. All opinion are 100% ours.