The Frax


INTRODUCTION

	The Frax is a program designed to teach students, ages 4-12, about fractions.  It is good for such a variety of ages because it involves activities as simple as dragging two halves into a pie to make a whole and as complicated as working with addition of fractions.  The rest of this Read Me explains the various components of the program.
	To play, simply double click on the file "The Frax.exe" inside the Sounds and Text folder.  If you want, you may create a shortcut and put it on your desktop.

LOGIN SCREEN

	Directions:  Following a short introduction program, which can be skipped by clicking the mouse anywhere on the screen, students will arrive at the login screen.  Here, they must decide what grade they are in (either kindergarten through second, or third and up). Then, they must type in their first and last names and choose enter.  It is important that the students type their first and last names as a single word that is connected by a period.  For example:
George.Bush

	Notes:  The first time students log into the program, if they are in kindergarten through 2nd grade, they will automatically be taken into the Tutorial.  At minimum, they will be exposed to the various representations of fractions that will be encountered throughout the program.  At most, they will gain some understanding of what fractions are, visually and conceptually.  At the conclusion of the Tutorial, the student receives his/her first star and is encouraged to earn more stars at the various activities in the program.  This way, because the number of stars a student has earned is displayed on the home screen, there are no students that have 0 stars.  
	If the student is a returning user, they will go directly to the main screen.  They may return to the Tutorial any time that they wish, but they will not be required to start there.  Also, completing the tutorial will only lead to earning a star a maximum of one time.  


TUTORIAL (Lower-Right portion of the Home Screen)

	Directions:  The tutorial is a straightforward lesson on the concept of fractions.  It is a tour through various examples of fractions that that the student will encounter in the program.  All that is required of the student is to listen to the examples.  At the end of each scene, buttons will appear on the bottom right corner.  From left to right, the buttons jump to other scenes in the tutorial.  The left-pointing arrow will go back to the previous scene.  The cyclical arrow will repeat the current scene.  The right-pointing arrow will go to the next scene.

	Concepts covered:  The tutorial talks about the basic concept of a fraction, as a part of a whole.  Then examples are shown using the representations the student will encounter later in the program.  Examples include fractions as shapes, and fractions as part of a group of objects.  For the fractions as part of a group, we organized the objects within the boundaries of shapes.  In this way, we hoped to build on the concept of fractions using shapes, and show their relationship to fractions as parts of a group.


HOME SCREEN

	Directions: Once the students are in the home screen, they will see 5 "fractoids" that they can choose from.  These "fractoids," of which three are educational modules, are described throughout the rest of the Read Me.  
In addition, the number of stars the students have earned are displayed in this screen.  They are displayed as a fraction over the number 16.  They can earn 5 from each of the three modules, and 1 from the tutorial, for a total of 16.


NUMERATOR-DENOMINATOR MODULE - (Upper-left portion of the Home Screen)

	Directions:  Click one of the pies, which are divided into different fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8).  Click on any number of the pieces that you want.  Then drag in the numbers from the list at the top of the screen to fill in the correct values for the numerator and denominator.  The fraction created, should correctly represent the pie you have selected, or the number of pieces colored in out of the whole.  Note: Equivalent fractions will be considered correct answers.

	Concepts Covered:  The concept of "what is the numerator" and "what is the denominator" is exposed.  The number of colored pieces in a pie represents the numerator.  The total number of pieces in the pie represents the denominator value.  The students also work with spatial and visual representations of fractions, as parts of a whole.

	Goals: The goal is for the students to be able to connect spatial representations of fractions with the numerical values.  The students should also be exposed to examples, and visualizations of what fractions are, as well as how fractions are written.

	Game goals:  The students earn a star each time they complete a "level".  This activity is a free-form activity, with all questions being generated by the student's participation. Levels are determined by their scores, which are simply how many questions they have answered correctly.  The levels are as follows:

	Level		Score
1 5
2 15
3 30
4 50
5 75


FRACTIONS OF A GROUP MODULE - (Upper right portion of the Home Screen)

	Directions:  Click the start button to begin.  A number of coins will appear on the left of the screen (either 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 9).  Students will then be asked to drag either half of the coins or one third of the coins to the right side of the screen.  Once they are satisfied with their answer, they then click on the equals sign button.  If the answer is correct, a thumbs up sign is projected while simultaneously announcing "Super!"  If the answer is incorrect, the students are notified sympathetically and are encouraged to keep trying.  Students may click on the help button at this point to see what the correct answer was.  The answer is announced verbally as well as displayed graphically.  After this process, regardless of whether or not the answer was correct, students must push on the start button to receive a new problem.

Concepts Covered:  The concept of fractions of a group is covered in this model.  It is important that students recognize that fractions do not only exist as numbers less than 1 (i.e. 1/2 of 1 is 1/2, but 1/2 of 6 is 3).  They exist naturally in countless places in this world, and we try to identify a few of them.  By being able to recognize how many objects make up one half or one third of the total further adds to their overall understanding.  

Game goals:  The students also earn a star each time they complete a "level" in this module.  Students' current scores from this module determine the levels.  The score is determined by adding the number of answers correct and subtracting the number of answers incorrect.  The levels are as follows:

Level		Score
1		5
2		15
3		30
4		50
6 100


	Notes: To return to the home screen, students simply need to click on the home button from the main screen of the module.  Also, questions involving thirds only appear after the student reaches level 3.  Finally, to offer an additional feature for students, there is a money button.  At any time it can be selected to see how much money is displayed on the screen.  It can be clicked again to see that information in addition to how much money has been dragged to the right side of the screen.  It can be clicked a third time to remove both sets of information.  There are no specific questions pertaining to this button, but, rather it is designed to offer an added challenge/aid to students above 1st or 2nd grade who are working with fractions.  The challenge comes from the ability to quiz oneself on how much money is displayed on the screen.  The aid comes from the ability of students to recognize certain quantities of money as one half.  For example, many students recognize 50 cents has half of one dollar.  


PARTS OF A WHOLE MODULE - (Lower left portion of the Home Screen)

Directions:  To play, simply drag the small pie pieces on the left, into the large pie onto the right.  The goal is to make a whole in as many ways as possible.  The students have three different shapes to choose from - halves, quarters, and eighths.  Because of that, there are 9 ways to make up a whole (two halves, four quarters, eight eighths, one half & two quarters, one half & four eighths, one half & one quarter & two eighths, three quarters & two eighths, two quarters & four eighths, and one quarter & six eighths.   As always, if the students need help, they simply need to click on the help button.

Concepts Covered:  The concept of fractions as a part of a whole is covered in this module.  The students will learn that there are many ways to combine numbers less than 1 (i.e. 1/2, 1/4, 1/8) to make a whole.  They will see this visually with the pieces they are working with.  They will also see it numerically, as there is a counter on the bottom of the screen that keeps track of how many halves, fourths, and eighths the students have dragged into the pie.  Moe advanced students will begin to recognize the underlying addition that is occurring.  The concept of adding fractions is a very difficult one, which is why this program is good for any person, age 4-12.  

Game goals:  As stated earlier, the students are trying to combine fraction pieces to make a whole.  Each time they complete a whole, they awarded one point.  As with all the other modules, these points are not displayed graphically, but rather are kept track of internally.  After a certain number of points, the students will pass levels and be awarded stars.  The levels are determined as follows:

Level		Score
1		4
2		8
3		15
4		25
5 50

ABOUT SCREEN - (Lower right portion of the Home Screen)

	This module provides some background on the creators of the software, June Ahn and Ted Martin.  It also gives special thanks to others that helped make this software possible.




