Thinkwell Online Courses Review

I've taken Thinkwell classes since I was in 8th grade. I love them! I've taken Public Speaking, AP Biology, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Precalculus, and right now I'm taking AP Calculus AB and AP Chemistry. Here's why I'd recommend them:

• The teachers. Every teacher in Thinkwell's videos is obviously passionate about the subject they teach and extremely qualified to teach it. They are good at what they do, too. Prof. Burger has taught me math concepts I never thought I'd understand. Bonus points for being extremely funny and charismatic. I don't know how he works so many jokes into math videos, but I've actually laughed out loud on numerous occasions while watching them. Even the teachers who don't crack so many jokes are enjoyable to listen to because you can tell that they love what they do.
• The self-paced system. You can finish your class as fast as you want or take up to an entire year, if you need it.
• Great pricing. You get a lot of quality for a very reasonable price.
• Layout of video lectures: you can see the teacher, what he's writing, definitions of new terms, and a lecture outline all at the same time and the screen doesn't feel overly cluttered. Pretty rare and impressive.
• There is a ton of content in each course. Each lesson has a video and an exercise. Each unit has a practice test, an exam, and a homework. Each unit also usually has links and interactive content related to the videos as well as definitions for the vocabulary learned in that unit.

Visual Calculus Course

http://archives.math.utk.edu/visual.calculus/
Includes pre-calculus review, extensive interactive notes, programs, drills, modules, and quizzes.

Karl's Calculus Calculator

http://www.karlscalculus.org/interact.html
Free online calulator for calculus

Paul's Online Math Notes - Lamar University

Interactive notes, study help, review, tables and cheat sheets.
Algebra: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/Alg/Alg.aspx
Calculus 1: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcI/CalcI.aspx
Calculus 2: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcII/CalcII.aspx
Calculus 3: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcIII/CalcIII.aspx
Linear Algebra: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/LinAlg/LinAlg.aspx

MIT OCW Calculus Text

http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-textbook-spring-2005/textbook/

Text + Instuctors manual + Study guide. Access to videos.

Calculus - UBC

http://www.ugrad.math.ubc.ca/coursedoc/math100/notes/

Free calculus text from University of British Columbia

Calculus - Math.Darthmouth.edu

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~klbooksite/
Extensive calculus resource with text, worked examples, applications, tests, and practice

First Year Calculus Notes

Used at Macquarie University
http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/wchen/lnfycfolder/lnfyc.html

S.O.S. Math

http://www.sosmath.com/index.html
Math review site: problems, explanations for Algebra, Calculus, and Trig

OpenCulture - courses

http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

OpenCulture - Textbooks

http://www.openculture.com/free_textbooks

Math Vids.com

http://www.mathvids.com/

Features:
Math videos
TI Calculator tutorials

Brightstorm - Math

http://www.brightstorm.com/math/

The math part of Brightstorm.

Features:
"Short, to the point math videos"
Instant answers to homework problems
Large user base, active help forums

Math TV

http://www.mathtv.com/videos_by_topic

Thousands of math videos

Calculus Made Easy - Book

http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf

An online Calculus textbook.

Free Math Help.com

http://www.freemathhelp.com/

Math help website for high school math.

Subjects covered:
Algebra
Trigonometry
Calculus
Geometry
Statistics

Features:
- Active message help board for questions
- Lots of atricles on math
- Misc articles on things like calculator buying, finance, etc.

Hippocampus

www.hippocampus.org

A few full high school courses with textbooks/videos/problems/tests/answers. Expanding to a beta site soon.

Algebra (English, Spanish)

American Government Biology (AP) Calculus (English, Spanish) Chemistry Earth Science Economics Physics Religion Psychology Statistics US History

Khan Academy: a severely underrated homeschooling tool

Khan Academy is arguably the world's most popular learning website. Originally hosting math videos, Khan Academy has now expanded to include videos on biology, chemistry, physics, health and medicine, cosmology and astronomy, art history, civics, government, finance, computer science, economics, history, test prep, and music.

The site makes it beautifully simple to begin the process of learning a new math topic or refresh yourself on various subjects you haven't touched for years. The built-in learning environment tracks your progress and you have the ability to add students and view their progress. You're able to track how much of each topic (geometry, trig, algebra) you (or your students) have mastered separately as well as view how much of the entire subject (math) they've successfully got under their belts.

Most of the videos are between 5 and 15 minutes, making them easily digestible. In addition, there are practice questions to help solidify learning. The site is gamified: points are earned for watching videos and for completing practice questions. You can earn badges and view charts of your points earned over time. If you take a look at the site's gamification, you'' easily be able to see how using Khan in your homeschool could possibly spark a little friendly competition among your students.

I have used Khan Academy since it's early days. In high school, (I was homeschooled) I watched Khan Academy videos when I was still foggy on a topic that my curriculum covered, but maybe didn't explain as clearly as Sal Khan, the founder and the teacher in many of the videos, tends to. In college, I used Khan Academy to cram for math exams. The cramming itself is not admirable, but Khan helped make it effective.

One of my personal favorite bits about the videos is that Mr. Khan loves to explain WHY something works the way it does (an unlikely-looking math equivalency, for example) instead of just insisting that we do it that way because "that's how it's done", something I've heard from too many teachers who can't be bothered to explain the concept further. Also, Khan explains everything as clearly as humanly possible without being dull, which is wonderfully uncommon in and of itself. Here's a video from Khan Academy about the birth of stars to illustrate my point:

Khan Academy is potentially a priceless homeschooling tool. The quality and quantity of resources here are difficult to match, even with a paid curriculum. I would recommend it as a supplement to any of the subjects available on the site. I'd argue that it cannot be standalone curriculum because sometimes the practice questions lack breadth. But it is undoubtedly a wonderful homeschooling resource: it is almost a free tutor who knows everything about almost) everything.