In my house, we’re struggling to help our 12-year-old with math — mostly because we’ve forgotten how to divide mixed fractions, calculate area and perimeter, and remember what the heck a distributive property is.
Thankfully, for students and would-be teaching assistants alike, there’s Khan Academy, a service that started with a batch of YouTube videos but has evolved into a pretty extensive virtual classroom. And earlier this week, Khan Academy released a new iPad app stocked with its entire library of learning videos and interactive exercises.
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The app covers a huge range of categories, starting with grade-school math: everything from basic addition and subtraction on up to trigonometry and multivariable calculus. Other categories include science, economics, arts and humanities, and test prep (for tests like the SAT and GMAT).
You’ll also find curated partner content from museums, academic institutions and NASA, along with college-admission information and coach/classroom resources.
In other words, tons of learning material. And in certain areas, like math, the app offers interactive exercises. These are really cool, with a scratchpad for working out problems and a MyScript-powered answer area that immediately tells you if you got it right. Plus, it syncs with your online Khan Academy account if you already have one.
Khan Academy for iPad is free, and to my thinking an amazing resource for students of all ages. At press time I haven’t received an answer regarding an Android version, but I’ll update the post if and when I get one.