Review of Time4learning

Time4learning is an educational website designed as a supplement to after school education or home school curriculums. They offer programs from preschool up to eighth grade, covering many subjects such as science, language arts, and math. I was given the opportunity to review this website for a month, and during that period we covered both levels 1 and 2 of the preschool program they offer. I believe it is good to use different tools when it comes to education, and the computer is a tool that has a wide range of uses.

When I first introduced Monkey to the website, he was excited, he loved the Time4learning mouse and was happy to have his own website to explore. I let him choose his own subjects and he was able to do as many activities as he wanted within a certain time frame. He loved the short videos and the books, and the games kept his attention well with the bright colors and same characters throughout each subject. His favorite game was the patterning game, and he quickly mastered ABAB, ABB, and ABC patterns.

Now although he enjoyed using the website, he got frustrated a lot. When you master a subject, it gives you a check mark. To master a subject, you have to complete each activity in that subject. There were many activities that never gave Monkey a check mark, even though he got everything right the first time. This irritated him greatly. Some of the games didn't work until we reloaded a couple of times. Now, having computer programming in my background, I understand things like this happen quite easily, so it didn't upset me, even if I were a paid member. They have a handy contact form on their site to submit any problems to. I didn't receive any response, but I'm sure being a big website that they get a lot of inquiries and issues, so I let it slide. My tune might have been different if I were paying monthly, but then I would have contacted them by some other method.

Another problem I had was how easy a lot of the games were. The matching game was way too easy for a preschooler, it had only six cards to match up, so he found this to be the most boring game.

The storybooks were one of his favorite things, but I didn't like how it narrated without highlighting the words as they were spoken. To remedy this, I pointed to each word, which isn't a big deal, but for a paid access site, I would prefer the highlighted words.

It's always a good idea to leave your laptop on the edge of the couch so you can take a picture.


Speaking of the membership, it is monthly, and too costly for our family. I think it would work better as a series of apps for the ipad or android tablet. There are too many free sites out there to compete with, I wouldn't want to pay monthly for something that I can't pay off. I do like how you can get a free trial, that way you can see if it will work for you or not before paying for a full month.

All in all, I believe the website has some great potential. Kids need to have computer skills, and letting them play on an educational website like Time4Learning is a great way to obtain those skills. 

 I was not financially compensated for this review, the opinions stated are my own.

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