Goblins vs. ALEKS

The AI McGraw Hill added to ALEKS grades answers and routes practice. It doesn't hear a student reason or watch written work. The AI-powered ALEKS courses for Calculus I and II run on what McGraw Hill's announcements call AI-driven machine learning based on billions of ALEKS data points, and the same register runs through ALEKS Adventure for grades 4 and 5 and the Sharpen exam-prep app due fall 2026. Goblin does both live, and teaches the missing idea on the canvas the moment the student stalls.

ALEKS's most common complaint is progress erasure, where periodic Knowledge Checks re-test old topics and pull mastered slices back off the pie, so students watch finished work vanish.

• One student's published account describes dreading the 'Take a break' notification, a lockout that closes a topic for about two hours after three wrong answers.
• The same account calls the built-in explanations thin.

Goblins treats the wrong answer as the teaching moment instead. Goblin asks what the student was thinking, fixes the misconception right there, and nothing ever locks.

ALEKS's headline studies were run by McGraw Hill's own data scientists, and the one independent look found weak evidence.

• The two 2018 studies McGraw Hill promotes, covering roughly 12,000 students at West Virginia University and Milwaukee Area Technical College, were run by McGraw Hill's own data scientists with a researcher affiliated with its advisory board, and announced by press release.
• The one independent evaluation, run by Empirical Education in Arizona, found evidence too weak to earn more than ESSA's lowest 'Promising' rating.
• An IES-funded randomized trial is still in progress, so no independent randomized result exists yet.

ALEKS has no public school price. K-12 ordering runs through a quote from a sales rep. For families, McGraw Hill publishes $19.95 a month or $179.95 a year, with family discounts. Goblins publishes its model instead, free for teachers to start, with a per-school or per-district price only when you want unlimited live help.

Goblins is free for teachers, with 15 live help-enabled problems per student each month, worksheet uploads, standards-aligned assignments, and teacher avatars included, no credit card. Goblins Max, priced per school or district, makes live help unlimited and adds standards and engagement reporting.

Yes. The live classroom view shows every student's work as it happens, so you know who is stuck this minute and can pull a small group on the spot. ALEKS's pie chart updates after a Knowledge Check. The live view updates as the pencil moves. You also get session replays of the written work and the full tutor conversation for every problem.

Goblins supports whatever language your students think in. We never cap it at a number, students speak and draw in their language and Goblin keeps up, and we add new languages whenever a classroom asks.

Yes. Goblins complies with COPPA, FERPA, and student data privacy laws in all 50 states.