Zoombers

What is Zoombers app?

Zoombers is packed full of math and logic games for kids to gain practice. It also has robust administration tools for teachers and parents to use when guiding their kids' math learning.

The platform's web portal has the tools for parents and teachers to administer and monitor their children's accounts. The downloadable apps for Zoomber are for kids to use for learning and practice. Kids can also access the games through a web browser.

For teachers and parents

Adults will usually use the Zoomber web portal as it has all their admin tools. The tools differ slightly depending on whether you are a parent or a teacher to reflect the roles. There are also separate tiers for school staff called teacher and principal, which have tools reflecting the different roles.

The tools let you create, administer and monitor children's accounts. You can set the language as either Spanish or English for each child and control how kids play the games by toggling switches called free navigation and adventure.

Free navigation, when turned on, lets kids access all of the content for the year. When turned off, it restricts kids to the current week's activities.

Adventure mode layers a guided view over the activities to make selecting them more gamelike.

Teachers have a homework screen to allocate tasks to individuals or groups. Setting homework is a straightforward process as you can filter the activities by their topic, and then it is easy to drag and drop them to allocate them.

Once kids have played the activities, parents and teachers will want to see how well their kids have performed. The platform's feedback is well-judged to provide valuable data and presents it clearly. You can also download the data for each child or group as a zip file.

For kids

Kids log in to play the various activities available with a username and password provided by their parents or teacher. Their first play session gets off positively by getting kids to design their avatars, which they can also adapt later. They also make a strategic choice which can provide a gameplay buff based on what kids feel is their weakness.

Adults set the Zoomber play experience for kids, so the exact experience for each child will vary depending on what their parents or teachers feel is most suitable. Kids will see some or all of the following sections depending on whether a teacher or parent administers their account and the options they have set.

Daily Challenge

The activities in this section refresh daily to encourage kids to open the app regularly.

Homework

This section is where kids find the tasks allocated by their teachers.

My Games

There is a wide selection of age-related math games here for kids to play.

Adventure

This screen adds a gamified structure to playing the activities.

Multiplayer

Kids can compete against their online friends in this section. Each player has a friend code they can share to find opponents.

Kids receive rewards for playing the single-player games, some of which give boosts like extra time, while others help with the gameplay, such as freezing objects. The game rewards success with these extras, but teachers can add to them from their web portal.

What we love about Zoombers

Apps that work on a wide range of platforms provide valuable flexibility for families and schools. Kids can use the web app on laptops and desktop computers at home or school. However, it also deserves a place on parents' devices so that kids can fit in a little fun and productive learning when they need occupying elsewhere.

Zoombers perfects a math app's gamified look and feel with its presentation and features. The activities have high-quality graphics and sound. In many gamified apps, player rewards are purely aesthetic, whereas, in Zoombers, they can influence the gameplay by providing extra time or chances, for example. 

As well as making it feel more gamelike, kids' choices regarding their rewards help them notice their weaknesses, such as speed or accuracy. The reward they choose can help mitigate their problems while they work to overcome them.

The two-player games are a great way of getting kids to do some extra math, and the app administers it very well through player codes. Whether kids want to compete with classmates while at home or when at school, they'll find it easy to do.

We found the administration and monitoring tools very easy to use. All of the information we needed was available as tooltips or other contextual information. The tools and options made clear their purpose and means of use, while the activities made it easy to determine the skills and topics they covered.What skills does it teach?

Zoombers uses child-appropriate games and activities to provide math practice.

What age is it appropriate for?

Zoombers is a math learning platform with content for kids between five and thirteen. Obviously, the later kids get access to this platform, the less time they'll have while it is still suitable for them. For parents, we'd recommend the upper age for first subscribing to be ten which will still allow room for progress.

Elementary and primary schools are ideally placed to take advantage of Zoomber.

Is Zoomber easy to use?

The supporting website for Zoomber provides a downloadable PDF guide for parents, which is always good to see. This aid will help newcomers to the app get started and maximise their trial to get a good impression of how the app suits their child.

Zoomber also has a well-populated, clear, and informative video tutorial selection. These will be very useful for schools embedding the app into their teaching and getting a better view of its features before buying.

The web portal is easy to navigate and find the different sections.

Zoombers shows its instructions for the different activities as text and does not speak them. This could make the app more difficult for kids struggling to develop their literacy skills.

How will students benefit?

Kids have always needed encouragement to practice math as much as they should. With so many eye-catching distractions available to young people today, it is even more difficult.

The appropriate level of practice does not have to be hours. Kids only have a limited concentration span, so a little and often approach is ideal. Zoombers competes well with the attractiveness of games and offers stimulating gameplay features to make completing homework and practising far more fun.

For many kids, this will reduce their reluctance to work on their math. With the added competition of Zoomber's multiplay games, they might even want to spend longer than they need playing and practising on the app.

How will parents benefit?

Parent Subscribers

The dedicated dashboard for parents provides what they need to help their kids without being confused by options that only make sense for teachers. Whether you solely homeschool your kids or are looking for additional resources to supplement school-based learning, the tools will give you the information to gauge kids' progress and see how they use the app.

Parents whose kids have access via their school

Parents will appreciate their child having access to such a supportive app as Zoombers for use at home. As well as giving kids day-to-day support, it lets them continue with their education if their school is closed or they cannot attend for any reason.

However kids have access to Zoombers, it will reduce family friction as parents shouldn't have to nag their kids as much to complete their homework or practice their math skills.

How will teachers benefit?

Zoomber puts a lot of information and flexibility in the hands of teachers. The reporting tools are great for getting clear and helpful student performance data. The homework and activity settings let teachers ensure kids use Zoombers in a way that complements lessons. For example, kids could have free access to all of the activities in the app, or teachers can restrict them to just the games they allocate.

Zoombers makes homework easier for teachers to administer and less of a chore for kids. Teachers set homework tasks to groups or individuals using their dashboard in the Zoombers web portal. Teachers can check back to see whether each student has carried out the specified activity and how well they have done.

Hopefully, as their homework with Zoombers is playing a math game, getting kids to complete it should be easier.

A convenient part of the homework tools is that you can schedule it over time rather than do it weekly. This can be a more efficient approach at the start of a teaching block rather than a weekly task. If you do need to adjust it in response to lessons, it is simple to do so.

We wish that more apps would take note of Zoomber's approach to teachers. As well as the admin tools and reports, they can access the games their kids can play. This access can make informed lesson planning much easier and has the potential for teachers to use the activities for front-of-class teaching on a shared display. For extra fun, you can even compete with your students as if you were a classmate.

Browsing the activities is easy, and finding ones that suit a particular need is effortless. Each one lists the skills it addresses, making it easy for teachers to match them to their lesson objectives.

How much does Zoomber cost?

When you sign-up to the Zoombers web portal, you'll get a generous fourteen days of full access. This is plenty of time for your child to use the app and for you to determine how well it suits them. Make sure your kids use it plenty during the trial so that you can try out the assessment tools.

The subscription for families can be monthly or annual, with the latter offering approximately a 10% discount. Both subscriptions' prices compare favourably with competing apps, especially as Zoombers supports multiple profiles to allow more than one child user.

Zoombers offers a free pilot test for schools and occasional webinars to show the product in use.

Is Zoomber safe to use?

The apps have no advertisements, even when playing during the free time-limited option.

What can Zoomber improve on?

Zoombers offers two language options, Spanish and English. During this review, we noticed that not all website pages adhere to the user's specified language, at least if English is chosen. This was not a problem in the downloadable apps.

We haven't penalised Zoomber for this as it deserves to be viewed for the excellent app it is, not penalised for what is likely to be an easy fix. With a smattering of Spanish and contextual clues, we could use the app well enough, and the 14-day trial will clarify whether this is still a problem when trying the app.

You can get a good overview of which math topics Zoomber covers by looking at the assessment area of the parent portal, but this feels like a workaround. We'd like a clearer overview of what is covered for each grade outside of the user account to help potential buyers be better informed. Even better would be to have the app mapped against some international curricula.

The app has a sound toggle button that mutes everything or nothing. This switch would be more helpful if it separated music and sound effects, as the effects can still enhance the game's feel without the music. In a classroom, multiple computers playing sound effects are not so cacophonous as having multiple computers playing music.

Overall rating of the app.

Zoombers is a fantastic math platform that we are happy to recommend to school and parent subscribers. However kids get access to it, they'll find the games a great way to practice math, and the two-player section will be an effective nudge for competitive kids.

Parents looking for an app to give their kids extra support should sign up for the trial, and schools should consider taking advantage of the pilot test. Zoombers is a five-star app.