• What is the additional cost per student, per semester?
  

  None. There is a one time charge for a semester's curriculum for each course (except for the free portions that are offered for download on this site). Use it with as many teachers and students through as many semesters and years as you like on a single campus. Use on multiple campuses requires the purchase of multiple copies.

• Is the curriculum closely aligned with STARR/EOC and Common Core?

  Yes, see TEKS/STAAR/EOC and CommonCore

• Is the curriculum compatible with CSOPE?

  Yes.

• Do you give out email address/phone number references of other schools using the curriculum?

  We do provide a list of schools using Blue Pelican Math in each of the states; however, we cannot provide contact names and/or phone numbers due to privacy issues.

• Can the curriculum be used for independent study or for home school?

  Yes. The student can proceed at his/her own and has immediate feedback on homework problems. The videos give detailed instruction on each lesson.

• Why are the answers to some of the problems presented here on the Internet for the first semester of each course? My students would simply come here and copy.

  First of all, the answers provided here on the internet are for only the first 3 units of only the first semester. Providing this minimal amount of answers helps teacher evaluate our courses. The purchased version of each course has all answers/keys provided.
  
  The feedback we get from teachers that use this curriculum is that many like the idea of allowing the students to see the keys. This approach does not work with lower level classes. Those students will often just copy and not really learn the material.
  
  However, it must be remembered that this curriculum is ADVANCED MATH. Advanced math students are typically curious to see how problems are worked and get instant positive feedback when they can see that they have worked a problem correctly.

  In any event, a quick quiz at the beginning of each class on the previous day's homework will generally cure the copying problem.

• In the videos, I notice that you work some of the examples and problems more quickly than I do when presenting to my students. Won't this be a problem for students watching the lesson videos?

  No. Remember, they can stop, pause, and replay portions of the video as they take notes and slowly come to an understanding. We could have taken more time with the videos; however, they already produce very large files since they are high resolution and wide-screen. Access time (even across local networks) was a consideration in keeping the files as small as possible.

• I see no prices on the Curriculum page. How much does it cost? Do you offer discounts for the purchase of multiple courses?
  
  

  Generally, $249.95 per semester for a course except for Geometry, which is $299.95. Go to the purchase page and check the items of interest. Scroll to the bottom to see the total cost, including shipping.
  
  Sorry, we do not offer discounts. The curriculum is already bargain priced.
  

• Do you accept purchase orders?

  Yes, but only from schools within the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. See the top of the purchase page for where P.O.s can be faxed, mailed, or emailed.

• Do you sell the tests and quizzes separately?

  No

• Is there something I can show my curriculum director that would quickly explain what this curriculum is all about? We are not allowed to buy new curriculum without approval.

  Yes. We have a video in which Mr. Cook gives a whirl-wind tour of the curriculum. whirl-wind video tour

• How is this curriculum similar to (or different from) the A&M Consolidated curriculum that was so popular just a few years ago?

  That curriculum was very popular and very successfull. Just like Blue Pelican Math (BPM), it had a Teacher Version and a Student Version of each lesson and was designed as a methodical, daily march through all the topics... again, very similar to BPM. The use of hand written keys and full solutions are other similarities (students respond much better to hand written keys).

  BPM additionally has an Absent-student Version. It does not have all the now obselete TAKS reviews but uses a continual spiral approach in the reviews to prepare for STAAR/EOC and for Common Core compliance. Most significant, BPM is much more highly organized and easier for teachers to use. Other significant differences are the videos of each lesson and the graphing calculator documents (and associated videos) closely tied to relevant lessons. Real-world applications are also stressed.

• My students are unable to view the videos with iPads? What gives?

  This was formerly a problem; however, we now have IPad/Tablet versions of all five courses in which the lesson videos and other documents are viewable with an iPad/Tablet.

• Why don't you have a demo download of the iPad version?

  We do have a nice explanation and demo that should assist in your evaluation.

• Why can't I buy the iPad version of a course without also buying the regular version?

  We can make special provisions to make this possible for those who want to do it. In those cases, the iPad version will be priced at the regular version price.
  
  It should be realized that the regular version is considerably more robust. It additionally contains videos for each calculator appendix, Common Core & TEKS/STAAR documents, and Tests & Quizzes documents. None of these are present in the iPad version which is geared strictly for the student.

• Is the iPad/Tablet version suitable for home schooling?

  Generally, no. The iPad version is meant to be installed by a school on a web server (which you would not normally have at home.) There are huge advantages of this for a school as compared to the installation of apps on many iPad/Tablets.

• What is the advantage of the iPad (tablet) version over the regular version?

  With the iPad Version, students can play the lesson videos on their iPad (tablet) and/or smart phone.

• Is the curriculum editable?

  What we supply in standard form is a pdf file that is generally only editable in a minor way with Adobe Acrobat. However, for a small additional fee ($49 per semester) we can supply the original MS Word files from which the pdfs were created. They are editable.

• Are security settings possible when the curriculum is posted to our local network?

  Yes. Upon purchase we provide detailed instructions on how to do this. When posting the curriculum to a local network or individual student computers, you may not want students to see the Teacher version and certainly not the Quizzes & Tests documents. The instructions point out the names of these pdf files so when copying files to a web server or individual computer, they can be omitted.

• How long are the lesson videos?

  They vary in lenght. The shortest is 4-5 min and the longest is approximately 20 min. In a normal classroom setting with a teacher, the lesson is presented and examples worked in what averages to be about 12-15 minutes while the students take notes. That's about the average time of the lesson videos. This leaves the remainder of the class for working on the assigment.

• Will the curriculum you deliver on a Flash Drive work on an Apple MAC?

  Yes. Try our demos here on this site. It will work just the same for you with what we provide with the Flash Drives.

• Do you ever update the curriculum? Any extra cost for updates?

  Yes we do update periodically.
  
  When purchased, Internet links are given where updates are available for download. In response to changes made in Common Core and TEKS, or asclarifications are needed, we do update. Dates are provided so you can compare to your last update date to see if another is justified.
  
  There is no cost for updates.

• I notice a lot of use of graphing calculators is referred to in the curriculum that I see here online. I know that some of the procedures can be quite tedious. Any help for the students here?

  Yes. Look at the curriculum menu. For eacfh lesson in which calculator activities are called for, look at two links to the far right of the menu item for that lesson. The first is to a document detailing (along with screen shots) the steps necessary to perform a specific calculator task. The second link is a video of the calculator as the task is performed.

• Why do you supply the curriculum on Flash frives instead of DVD's?

  It would require several DVDs or any one course. Flash drives are more reliable and faster than DVDs
  

• Why is it necessary to create an account before downloading the free curriculum?

  Curriculum changes are often mandated by Common Core and TEKS. As a result of you having an account, we are able to notify you of important enhancements, updates, clarifications, etc.

• I notice that you have the first semester as a free download, but to buy the flash drive of materials still costs $249. Is there a difference in what is offered other than the fact that it is on a flash drive?

  On the flash drive, you additionally get the tests & quizzes and all of the videos. Here on the site, only the first few lesson videos are available.
  
  Additionally, the flash drive lets you use the curriculum from your own computer or install to your school's local network.... in either case the files would load very fast.

• Can you send a salesman to our school for a demo?

  Sorry, but to hold cost down, we only have our online demos and videos here on this site as a sales tool. The entire first semester of each course is available for viewing at http://www.bluepelicanmath.com/curriculum.html and can be downloaded free at http://www.bluepelicanmath.com/userLogin_dwnLd.htm.

  Rather than pay sales people, our philosophy is to put our resources into continually improving our curriculum and allowing reasonably priced, quality products to sell themselves based on their own merits.
  

• I read somewhere that your curriculum has a spiral approach, as does Saxon Math. How does this work?

  According to Mr. Cook, "I, too, taught Saxon Math for several years and liked the spiral approach. The spiral approach is worked into each lesson of Blue Pelican Math to some extent; however, its presence is really in the cummulative reviews at the end of each unit (there are also regular unit reviews). The units are typically short, so those cummulative reviews come up quite often."

• I don’t get it. I have a wonderful textbook that is more in depth, has additional topics, and has lots more exercises than your curriculum. Why would I want to use your curriculum?

  It’s like the huge Chinese Buffet. It all looks so good, but there’s no way you can eat it all. In a school year, there are just a set number of days to cover all the required topics. We all remember how the enthusiasm at the beginning of school led us to really dig deep into those first few units only to discover by the end of the year that we had actually squandered precious time at the expense of not covering some other really important topics.
  
  Unfortunately, those skipped important topics are often the springboard into the next math course. Blue Pelican Math keeps you on track with its day-by-day methodical march through the curriculum and insures that all required topics are thoroughly covered. The difficult task of selecting topics, sequencing, and balancing time requirements has been done for you. Now you can concentrate on what really matters... teaching.

• I would like to put some parts of the curriculum on our school's web server so our students can access the material from home via the Internet, especially the videos. Do we have permission to do this?

  Yes, but in a limited way. Since this is copyrighted material, it must not be accessible to the general public. It is permissible if access is given via a reasonably secure password. The same is true for access via Moodle & BlackBoard.

 

Still have questions? ... ask us at  info@bluepelicanmath.com