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The Standard Deviants - Algebra 2-Pack Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 4 Reviews)

Entertaining and educational. Not sure if education will dominate the entertainment.
This is the strangest educational video that I have ever seen. The creators use a character called Idaho Jones that is "modeled" on the screen adventurer Indiana Jones. It starts with a scene similar to the opening one of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Idaho is with a woman in a cave and has discovered a golden X. He replaces it with an algebra textbook, but it is too light, causing all the traps to be triggered. After he avoids the traps, a character modeled after the sadistic Nazi in the "Raiders" movie takes the X from him.
Throughout the remainder of the tape, there are occasional short segments of Idaho as he continues the search for the golden X. Since this is a low budget film, the acting, accents and special effects are all REALLY bad. I laughed in spite of myself. There are other characters used, including parodies of a Chinese guru, a real estate agent for Algebraic Properties Inc. and a stuffy scientist with the voice of a man with severe nasal congestion.
Underlying all of this amusing nonsense, there is some serious mathematics education going on. When they are concentrating on mathematics, the explanations are very good and the animation of the algebraic rearrangements makes them easy to follow. The first subject covered is a brief history of algebra and the concepts of relations and functions. While there are occasions when more complex functions are included, the concentration is on linear functions. They are graphed, described, rearranged and inverted, and all are visually displayed when explained. All of the properties of linear equations are covered, including their roots.
While I liked the way the mathematics was presented, the other stuff is so silly that I don't know how to evaluate it. There is no doubt that the tape can be used to teach high school and college students algebra. They will certainly get some laughs from it, I just do not know if the silliness will dominate the math. Humor is such a matter of personal taste that I wouldn't presume to say anything more than while I laughed, it was all of the groaner variety. One thing is certain; students will not consider the tape boring.

Published in Mathematics and Computer Education, reprinted with permission.


Pretty good overall for beginners or if having difficulty
I am a High School Freshman just finishing Algebra I & II. I found the tape boring, since it was all review. The little skits reinforced things I already knew. They misrepresented the length. At the beginning of the tape, they said "Part I" would be two hours, but it was only one hour and twenty minutes. If it was all new to me, I would consider it pretty good, since it covered everything, and showed me short-cuts I already knew. The animation was very good. It would probably be very useful to someone who was having problems in Algebra, or just beginning in Algebra.

Savior
I found the tapes helped me a great deal, considering I have been out of school for 20 years and never learned algebra in high school. The animations are wonderful and most of the time very clear. Of course with anything, you have to do it over and over again until you retain the information, but I will definitely say "Do not start school with out the tapes." There's only one catch, Standard Deviants recorded the tapes so that they build upon one another and you'll need to buy the entire math collection if you want a totally clear understanding. I live by Standard Deviants. Good Luck...

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