Curing maths phobia

I've stuck the software version of the maths phobia cure I spoke about at GikiiV in Google docs.

http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B_aUKTaSgbLJMWM5ZjgxZTItYjZjOC00MWQzLTgwMzMtY2ZlYjhkMTliYTc1&hl=en&authkey=CKrbsvoI

http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B_aUKTaSgbLJZmU4MjExYmUtYTUzMC00MmRiLThiZDUtYzlhZmI4MjA5YWE1&hl=en&authkey=COPy1fgJ

and Andres will hopefully be making it available on the Gikii website shortly too.

It comes with a creative commons attribution, non commercial, share alike licence.  Tony Nixon developed the game and Karen Shipp produced the software. Both are gifted teachers.

I'm afraid it's Windows based (the OU was exclusively WinTel in the days we produced this stuff) but we'd be delighted if someone wants to adapt for Mac and Linux and other platforms.

In addition to the algebra game that I demonstrated at GikiiV it also covers a few extra things like circles, radians, degrees, angles and triangles, discounted cash flow and interest, brackets and substitution - basic numeracy we used to teach in our old Open University T102 Living with Technology course.

To try it you just need to download the zipped files, extract them (with WinZip or equivalent) to a single folder on your PC, double click on num3.exe and away you go.

The pre-test covers a range of stuff - it does a basic assessment of where the user is and then recommends parts of the old T102 course the student should study and which parts of the (CAL) software they should work through.

If you just want to start straight in with the counters game, then click on 'Section' and '1 Introduction to the game' and off you go.  We've been using this game at the Open University to cure algebra phobias for many years and as far as I know it has never failed in the classroom. I'd be interested in hearing readers experiences with it