Slashdot Mirror

For additional doses of that particular pleasure, try the rich and growing collection of learning available at the Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/

Does anybody know one of those free online class sites with a decent set of math classes, preferably geared more toward programmers?

I already have a degree in computing, but I've gone back to study a BSc in Math. Most people studying with me, to supplement the given material, make use of the Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/
and also the MIT OpenCourseWare http://videolectures.net/mit_ocw/

Khan Academy is good for reinforcing concepts, but the MIT OpenCourseWare is really good for straight out teaching.

I love the Classical Mechanics lectures by Walter Lewin - he's an amazing lecturer, although you'll already have to be good with calculus and differential equations to be able to easily follow.

MIT also has single and multivariable calculus, linear algebra and differential equations courses. If you completed all of them, you'll have a great basis for further math.

I'm sure that someone here has taken those classes in person and can vouch for how good they are.

http://www.khanacademy.org/ http://makezine.com/ http://www.instructables.com/ http://www.arduino.cc/ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ And many many more, but those are my favorites.

That's what the normal Wikipedia site is for...

If you want an easier explanation to munch on then check out Khan Academy.

Somebody call Khan! http://www.khanacademy.org/

IAAIE, and I am curious if you are including ELMO's replacing old school overhead projectors and/or C.O.W.'s replacing computer labs when you speak of "technology being employed simply for technology's sake."

Maybe you were referring to schools supplementing their overcrowded math classes by using http://www.khanacademy.org/?

Either way, I'm sure you wouldn't think to include SpEd in your comment, so I won't address that one.

It's already open-source :) See: https://sites.google.com/a/khanacademy.org/forge/for-developers/getting-started-with-the-code and: http://www.khanacademy.org/getinvolved

I already made a torrent file of 29 gigs of all the videos, it can be found in "Other Video Sources" here.

And such relationships can work both ways.

You've made an excellent argument for learning from knowledgeable other people with hands on experience about some area of interest, but, sadly, such people can only rarely be found in conventional schools...
    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools
    http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html

And you ignore the other baggage professional teachers come with:
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
    http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

Why not just watch a video series instead, and ask questions online?
    http://www.learner.org/
    http://www.khanacademy.org/
    http://www.explorelearning.com/

Of find some other alternative arrangement, including knowledgeable mentors among family, friends, or in the community?
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling

Is that really going to be that much worse than trying to learn from most "teachers" (who if you've ever been aroudn teacher training programs, you would see generally know little about math, science, and technology), as well meaning as most of them may be? The first thing most schools do is destroy a child's natural ability to learn and natural creativity:
    http://www.amazon.com/Scientist-Crib-Early-Learning-Tells/dp/0688177883
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Here is an alternative funding model for hiring private tutors or having neighborhoods again where people have time to share their knowledge freely, based on just giving public school funds directly to the parents:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
   

Or Khan Academy. Out of curiosity, I watched all of Khan's math topics that weren't over my head. Next, I'm on to Addition 2!

Isn't Bill Gates endorsing http://www.khanacademy.org/

Khan Academy does provide the mathematical R. Africa's languages may be a bit diverse for Reading and Riting courses.

http://www.khanacademy.org/ really does kick ass.

Khaaaa .... OK, I am voluntarily stopping my self mid-way.

Considering how much this one guy has done on a shoestring: http://www.khanacademy.org/

The whole paradigm is broken, see my collection of links starting here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

And also:
"Academic Bankruptcy"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/15taylor.html?_r=1

iPads are great and all, but the fact is, any cheap generic tablet or netbook can access khanacademy.org. That's all a motivated kid needs to learn almost anything in the STEM areas.

If I were a traditional textbook publisher I'd like to think I'd be smart enough to use my last $50 to put out a hit on that guy...

http://www.khanacademy.org/ really does kick ass. I'm using some of his 5-10 minute videos to supplement my graduate level Linear Algebra stuff. Most of it's straight to the point and if I need clarification on a subject I don't have to turn to the book.

Now how this saves money. I won't know. Then again text books aren't cheap. What ever happened to the OpenSource textbook that I thought CA was assembling to be 'free'?

http://www.khanacademy.org/video/intelligent-design-and-evolution

Seems to me like these kids should spend some time at Khan Academy.

The most popular educator on YouTube does not have a Ph.D. He has never taught at a college or university. And he delivers all of his lectures from a bedroom closet.

This upstart is Salman Khan, a 33-year-old who quit his job as a financial analyst to spend more time making homemade lecture videos in his home studio. His unusual teaching materials started as a way to tutor his faraway cousins, but his lectures have grown into an online phenomenon—and a kind of protest against what he sees as a flawed educational system.

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Self-Appointed-Teacher-Runs/65793/

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Funny you should ask...

I was just watching a video or 7 at the Khan Academy, and I was saying to myself "Wow, it would be so easy for me to make 10 minute lectures about one of my chosen programming language!". As a collective, we could probably simplify all sorts of compsci information!

Other than that, I know a few colleges have free courses online. Like the MIT free course material. I'm sure someone more informed here could provide you with some top-notch links.

"My opinion on that is, professors--like everybody else in the entire world--are human"
Except robots are being introduced into teaching: :-) http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=robotic+teacher

And you can also get a good free education through online content that you discuss with other online learners (for free), like through Khan Academy:
    http://www.khanacademy.org/

See my other posts in this thread for why things are changing and what to do about it.
   

For pre-U education to brush up your knowledge, there's Khan Academy to teach you everything from primary school to even college.

For formal university level education, you can get many of them free directly from university. MIT Open Courseware is one of the well known examples. You can find a list of them at Open Culture. Google Code University is a less known but great site that helps you start and search on your online education journey.

There are also video lecture collection sites that contain lecture recordings from various universities, such as Academic Earth and Video Lectures.

You may also interested in less formal technology videos such as BestTechVideos and Google Tech Talks.

You can download a lot of ebooks from the web. Here is an example list you can found on Delicious.

In case if you are only interested in web design, IMHO the best way to learn design and multimedia is go to a real college. But anyway, there are tons of resources for web design too. Delicious is a must have search tool for you to get started.

I'd love to provide more links that I have but I'm short of time. But as always, Google is your best friend!

Exactly, there are also direct educational resources online that can aid in learning, like http://www.khanacademy.org/ http://www.wikipedia.org/ not to mention the ability to actually work on homework at home, type up essays and do research and so on. Plus, it did say computer skills were enormously boosted, and last time I checked you need computer skills for just about any job that doesn't involve picking berries off a vine or being a low level construction worker.

Mea kulpa; very sorry please forgive me Mr Khan. I even read the article (to check if I couldn't find a linked torrent to troll the poster with), went back and copied from K Dawson. Oh the irony of having a nick which means I can blame only my own failure. I shall find an appropriate punishment for a troll. Go and read 4chan or dive off a bridge or something ..

P.S. In searching around I have found that

• the Khan Academy is a nonprofit, so if you do like the videos and manage to download them then please do donate (see FAQ and donate link at top of page (paypal only unfortunately).
• the videos have only just been clearly opened up - thanks to David Wiley (and again Salman Khan) for that; it's really important people follow up issues like this as early as possible.
• They are "working on having the content mirrored somewhere other than YouTube" (see FAQ again)
• there are quite a few Khan academy torrents already up on the pirate bay
• quite a few of the torrents listed below seem to go through registration etc so aren't exactly free.

I'd hope that someone starts downloading and manages to put all these up on a traditional download site (ibiblio or something?) and / or torrents.

Mea kulpa; very sorry please forgive me Mr Khan. I even read the article (to check if I couldn't find a linked torrent to troll the poster with), went back and copied from K Dawson. Oh the irony of having a nick which means I can blame only my own failure. I shall find an appropriate punishment for a troll. Go and read 4chan or dive off a bridge or something ..

P.S. In searching around I have found that

• the Khan Academy is a nonprofit, so if you do like the videos and manage to download them then please do donate (see FAQ and donate link at top of page (paypal only unfortunately).
• the videos have only just been clearly opened up - thanks to David Wiley (and again Salman Khan) for that; it's really important people follow up issues like this as early as possible.
• They are "working on having the content mirrored somewhere other than YouTube" (see FAQ again)
• there are quite a few Khan academy torrents already up on the pirate bay
• quite a few of the torrents listed below seem to go through registration etc so aren't exactly free.

I'd hope that someone starts downloading and manages to put all these up on a traditional download site (ibiblio or something?) and / or torrents.

Does an educational publishing house exist to disseminate information to the people who will use it to improve our society?

Absolutely. It just doesn't look like a traditional scholarly institution.

I really don't get all the fuss over MPG or Gallons per 100 miles. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other as far as I'm concerned.

I was making the assumption that both hypothetical guys are doing the same mileage over a given time.

It makes all the difference in the world, like you pointed out. I happen to drive a 19-20 MPG car. However, my driving doesn't exceed 150 miles per month (my commute is about 4 miles each way).

I have absolutely no economical reason to go out and buy a hybrid vehicle or a more efficient vehicle, even if gas hits $10 a gallon (my car is paid for and works).

Back to the point of this article. I really don't think there's a problem to begin with. This is 2010, if your math skills aren't up to snuff to be able to compare MPGs when you're shopping for a car, go online and educate yourself.

Finally (if anyone is still reading), this whole thing reminds me of a certain bash quote.

Cheers :)

http://khanacademy.org/

Oh, did I mention physics, biology, and the French Revolution?

Check out Kahn Academy http://khanacademy.org/. They have short 10-15 minute video on all types of math in easily digested servings.

I had to wonder if my alter ego was posting this question, but I knew it couldn't be me since because I'd been out of school for 30 years before returning last fall. Statistics is now a required course for CS at my school and took it first thing (the academic adviser signed me up) and I did struggle a bit because I couldn't follow the proofs involving calculus without help, but I still got an A (we didn't have to know the proofs for the exams). But when I saw the text (Pattern Recognition by Bishop) for the Machine Learning & Data Mining class the next quarter I knew I had to seriously (re)learn some calculus. I looked through a number of books and when I found Calculus for Dummies by Mark Ryan I knew I'd found exactly what I needed, the workbook is helpful too but not essential. Don't bother with Calculus II for Dummies though, it just an ordinary (which is to say useless for the non-naturals) calculus text (although I did pick up PDE from it in a brief look through).

And as it happens, the rules on AP Calculus transfer have also changed and I'm probably gonna wind up taking first year calculus anyhow, although pretty much too late for it to do me much good (it would have been helpful to do that before those classes I mention above). I will probably take it online from a community college rather than at the university though, which is what I'm also doing for the foreign language requirement. Thirty years ago the university didn't make CS majors take a foreign language reasoning that computer languages were foreign. We knew that was a joke then, of course the joke on me is that they fixed it in the interim.

For free online resources, the Kahn Academy videos are pretty good if that form works for you. http://khanacademy.org/'

Don't listen to all the noise on in this thread. You're totally The Man for braving the slings and arrows in returning to school. It's actually pretty cool in a lot of ways. Among other things you get treated with a rather large measure of respect as a result of being old(er). That is probably on account of the kids thinking you're likely to be a professor or at least a grad student.

Three years ago I was in the same situation. Now I'm working on Calculus III.

First, I recommend investigating your local community college. Prices are cheaper than the more prestigious schools nearby. I've been told by my professor that the Calculus textbook (Thomas' Calculus Early Transcendentals) is also used at the Colorado School of Mines. The courses are evaluated and transfer programs exist. Your employer may offer reimbursement.

Take the school's math placement exam and it will slot you into a class suitable for your skill level. Trust the recommendation. It was spot on for me.

Most of the mathematics classes at my school use a Web based program for homework and online quizzes. It may take some time to adjust, but overall I believe it is worthwhile. It also offers immediate feedback which is very useful. The quizzes are annoying, but instructors are good about granting partial credit if you show and grade your missed problems.

Personally, I think the calculus textbook sucks. Many reviewers on Amazon agree. On the plus side, the same text is used for calculus I, II and III so the cost is not too bad.

Amazon pointed me to a few useful supplementary books.

How to Ace Calculus by Adams Thompson and Haas
How to Ace the rest of Calculus - same authors
The Humongous book of Calculus Problems -Kelley

I found a few useful web sites.

http://khanacademy.org/ had a large number of 10 to 15 minute free presentations covering many subjects. Khan is *very* good at explaining the concepts, and working simple problems. But he does not cover the more difficult ones. This is an outstanding site to browse or brush up.

http://midnighttutor.com/ is another very good free resource.

http://calc101.com/ provides free step by step solutions to derivatives and many other types of problems. They charge $25 for step by step solutions to integrals. This is money well spent when you are stuck on homework problems.

I've also heard of websites offering worked out solutions to every problem, but I have not used them.

The TI-89 calculator will solve almost every problem thrown at it. But only dumb, non graphing calculators are permitted on exams.

If you are a Mac user, check out grapher. It's installed by default and very useful.

Good luck!

http://khanacademy.org/

I have gone through those at MIT, just for fun. I also found that Khan Academy was really interesting and perhaps is easier for some. Strang at MIT is awesome and also the courses at Yale are good.
UCLA has some great courses too.
science and magic was very informative. It doesn't hurt that some of the profs are also quite entertaining.OR science and magic on youtube

You might like:

Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/

(Get an account for the review software if you have forgotten college algebra skills as well.)

MIT's Open Courseware http://ocw.mit.edu/

Many of these courses now have full video libraries of lectures, homework and exam solutions, etc. You can buy a text and take the course.

I am interested to see other finds out there, though.

Except for the point that if families had that much money, the parents would not have to work that much (not even one job), and so would have time to homeschool. If you had three kids, and lived in NYS where US$20,000 is spent per kid per year, a working class family with three kids would have US$60,000 a year just to stay home with the kids and homeschool. And, at this point, there are lots of free educational materials on the internet; examples:
    http://www.khanacademy.org/
    http://www.learner.org/resources/browse.html

Maybe I'm presenting "puppies and rainbows", but it is a lot better than the dystopia outlined here (given that the value of all human labor is rapidly declining from automation, better design, and voluntary social networks):
    http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

If you trust kids to learn, and trust parents to usually have their kids' best interests at heart, then you can see that parents of older children can hire tutors, acquire learning materials, visit homeschool resources centers, and so on, to create good learning experiences. Here is a labor of love by Salman Khan over the past few years to create 1000 educational videos that step-by-step cover most of the information about math and science most kids would ever learn in high school:
http://www.khanacademy.org/

The fact is, as John Holt or John Taylor Gatto have said (both celebrated teachers with decades of classroom experience), most of what teachers know is how to manage a classroom of twenty children of roughly the same age and background and how to maintain discipline in the room. That's it. That is 90% of what most teachers have been taught. And they do it in all sorts of ways (including things like cutting sarcasm). Some teachers know more, like Jaime Escalante. Most do no.

Here is a study that shows that not only do most elementary school teachers know next-to-nothing about math, but the less math kids are taught in school, the better they are at it:
"When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools

Kids should be learning because they want to, not because they are forced to. For example, a person of any age can learn to read in about 50 contact hours if they really want to, or a school system can spend thousands of hours trying to pound literacy into a child and still produce functional illiterates (as is the case with many US high school graduates). The same goes for many other subjects.

The fact is, when someone learns math or chemistry, especially today with so many great video resources,
http://www.learner.org/resources/browse.html
almost all of the learning is done by kids themselves. Plus, parents can learn together with kids. And kids can learn together with other kids at the local library or through the internet. And old school buildings could be repurposed as learning centers.

Can this all be better? Sure. Let's put learning resource centers (or just better libraries) on every street corner, where anyone can go there at any time to get help learning whatever they want to learn about, whether reading, chemistry, carpentry, or cooking.

So, let's say that some parents send their kids to the cheapest private school and "keep the change". Are most kids going to be much worse off than they are now? About half of all kids in the USA can't even graduate from high school for one reason or another. Could it be that much worse?

Also, see my other comment in this thread.

One thing to watch out for. Like most people in the USA (myself included), you've been exposed to decades of propaganda by schools that schools are the solution (and the only solution) to making society work. What if some of that was self-serving?

Also, even assuming what you said was true, that you need some "specialist" to teach you chemistry (my kid and I just watched entire "The World of Chemistry" series at Learner.org, essentially with a Nobel Prize winning society as our chemistry "teacher"), what other lessons are teachers teaching that you don't want your kid to learn?
"The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher"
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
"""
Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class assignment, dulled responses, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are good training fo

I want to wholeheartedly agree with this, even as I posted another comment about compulsory school being bad for most kids in many ways. With my own child, since and early age, and following some of John Holt's suggestions, and those of other "unschoolers", I've been making numbers part of our every day existence, counting things we handle and so on. As a computer programmer, I point out recursion whenever we see it as nested items (like tow trucks towing tow trucks, or cups inside cups). I agree that parents need to have an awareness of this and can contribute very much (in a non-forced off-hand way). Another point Holt makes is to see that something like 2 + 2 = 4 is essentially the same "fact" as 4 = 2 = 2 and 2 * 2 = 4 and 4 / 2 = 2, something not taught or understood in many schools' approach to math education, where different operations are taught in different years. Also, there are a lot of resources now on the internet to learn math in fun way or at your own pace. For younger kids, here is one:
    http://www.poissonrouge.com/
For older kids, another:
    http://www.khanacademy.org/

What I would like to know is what are the best resources to learn math?

I doubt whether this addresses your needs, but I stumbled across the following some time ago and was impressed by the guy and what he's trying to do:

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Please see this book (and my other previous comment here):
    http://www.amazon.com/War-Play-Dilemma-Childhood-Education/dp/080774638X

I wrote a review of it here:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/the-war-play-dilemma.html

Other related books about general issues and about what has been done to girls via media (and poor nutrition):
    http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X
    http://www.amazon.com/So-Sexy-Soon-Sexualized-Childhood/dp/0345505077

And something every caregiver should know now that kids spend a lot of time indoors and have become vitamin D deficient:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

We got rid of broadcast TV long ago too (we do use DVDs like Mr. Rogers and nature videos, and selected YouTube).

While I don't recommend any screen media for younger kids if you can avoid it, this site is pretty good for age four:
    http://www.poissonrouge.com/

As is this:
    http://www.starfall.com/

For older ages, some good things are:
    http://www.learner.org/
    http://www.khanacademy.org/
    http://www.cosmolearning.com/

A caregiver needs to create a safe nurturing environment within a child's needs and abilities. You are doing the right thing.

Other useful links:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenting_styles
    http://www.motherstyles.com/

As well as reading there are some great youtube tutorials around where they can learn most of first year mathematics at their own pace.
One of my favourites was http://www.khanacademy.org/