Online Learning

Online Learning

Why YouTube isn’t the Holy Grail of Education?

Leave a Comment

 Here are the reasons Why Online Education Videos Are not the Solution to Education.

Learning through YouTube, The learning Cycle

    “Will I be able to pass my exam by learning it online through YouTube videos? “

    This is one of the most common questions that I am asked.

    I am a fan of Khan Academy. It is easily one of the best inventions of the century. It is free and people all around the world have access to it. I would recommend this for both parents and students.  There are many great links to lectures and practice assignments. YouTube also has some great educational resources. They make it easy to understand and fun for the students to learn.  I always send these videos along with the homework.

    To learn, you need to be able to retain this information. You can always revisit the lesson and use that information to help out your short term memory.

    Parents and their students need to be aware of how to use these free online resources. While they are good for learning and can be used in addition to lectures they are not going to teach a student all they need to know.

    Some students have trouble focusing in class. They can use the online material on the day of the exam but they are not learning anything. They can learn related information by watching these videos but it will not help them in the long run.

    In addition to the free videos, parents need to provide other learning opportunities for their students. These learning activities can include worksheets and various types of assessment to check for understanding.

    The goals of learning are to take the information and store it in the long term memory. This cannot be done to be with educational videos alone.

Do you agree? Comment below!

How to Use IXL Math Program, For Parents

Leave a Comment

This blog post is for Parents considering or Using the IXL Math Program

IXL is an online learning Platform primarily offering educational practice for K-12th graders. The company also provides analytical tools to track student and classroom performance and identify areas for academic improvement with each student. IXL Learning offers practice skills for math, language arts, science, social studies, and Spanish. IXL is used in more than 190 countries by 7 million students.

And as a Math tutor, I love using IXL for my students. It has a lot of great features. The Questions are focussed at testing their understanding at all levels. Assigning and Assessing Homework has never been this easy. It is a wonderful tool for Elementary and Middle Grades.

And I was really shocked to see so many negative reviews by Parents.

Well, as a tutor, I never really rely on the explanations that IXL provides when the students get them wrong and I don’t expect them to learn from them. Also, I really don’t take the points it awards the students seriously.

For me, it is more like a testing, practicing, and a revising tool and it does it so well.

So, Here are some ways to use IXL without getting frustrated

How to Use IXL 

It is a supplementary tool. My suggestion is to supplement IXL with Khan Academy lectures. The one thing Khan Academy isn’t good at is the lack of Practice Questions and IXL fill that gap.  Khan Academy is free and IXL costs $80 per year.

How to Get a 100 on IXL

The Smart Score: Well, your child is doing great, got all the questions right, has full 100 points, but gets a question wrong and the points dropped drastically. That’s the frustration most parents and children have.

I would advise you to aim for 85 %, just that, that is sufficient. Or I would even go to an extent and say, Ignore it.

And as I said in the beginning, IXL is just a supplementary tool. Given any day, I will definitely choose to solve problems with a pen and paper over any online tool.

In my opinion, Reasoning and writing the steps involved in a problem are as important as arriving at a solution to it. IXL does the latter job and as a parent, just make sure you do the other one.

For IXL assisted online tutoring, Make an enquiry here

YouTube Channels for Math Motivated High Schoolers

Leave a Comment

YouTube channels every math motivated High Schooler should know about:

If you are someone who thinks that math teachers and school books don’t do justice to your inquisitive mind, you are not alone. Subscribe to these channels to keep yourself motivated.

YouTube Channels for Math Motivated High Schoolers
  1. MathAntics: Math Antics does basic math but a lot funnier. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBuMwlP7kHkNxdPAqtFSJTw
  2. Mathematicsonline: Must subscribe for geometry and also has videos to interpret equations geometrically. https://www.youtube.com/user/mathematicsonline/videos
  3. LeiosOS:  Anyone who aspires to become a software engineer one day should definitely check out the videos in this channel. Very insightful and I loved the Linear Algebra part of it. One can learn the basics of Data Structures, Graph theory and Algorithms here. Hasn’t been active in the recent past. The old uploads are great. https://www.youtube.com/user/LeiosOS
  4. Numberphile: Most subscribed math channel. Makes math videos for general populace, can be binge watched. Very active in uploads too. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Numberphile
  5. Mathologer: Again like Numberphile. Makes videos on popular math problems like Riemann Conjecture, FLT etc. Must follow. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mathologer
  6. 3Blue1brown: Beautiful and appeasing visualizations. I dug it out from YouTube. Must watch. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3brown1blue
  7. Hotel Infinity: It covers interesting  mathematical paradoxes. Makes them easy to understand. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hotel+infinity
  8. 3D printing math: It makes 3D printed math structures. Quite Amusing. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3d+printing+math
  9. Khan Academy: Classic. Vast so know what you want to learn and search. Don’t binge watch.https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy

The author Sindu Bharathi is an increasingly popular private online math tutor and blogger on online learning, math, and homeschooling. To receive more updates like this, please subscribe here.

You can know more about learning math online here.

You can learn about the Youtube channels for math motivated high schoolers here. Let me know if you wish to know more about online resources for homeschooling. You can do this here.

Also, if you want to try Online tutoring, you can book a free consultation here.

Benefits of Online Learning Over Conventional Learning

Leave a Comment
Benefits of Online learning over Traditional learning

Traditional education (classroom education) is structured in such a way that it churns out a mass, disciplined workforce with basic knowledge to meet the labor demands.

Apart from stressful homework and learning information from stressed and underpaid teachers, students have to go through social anxiety due to bullying and popular culture, among other things. The frequent shootings in the US vouch for this.

Furthermore, according to the International Labor Organization, due to the recent changes in the tech world, like automation and artificial intelligence, the workforce demand in all sectors would soon undergo a massive change which will not be compensated by the supplies of our traditional education system.

Thus, to remain relevant and competitive the student has to grow and polish the skill sets necessary in a day where they spend the majority of the time in a classroom with relatively less learning output. It is strenuous and depressing.

Online Education, something that many parents are confused about, is a learning environment that you and I dreamed about during our school time, sitting in a boring History class.

The advantages online education have over classroom education are humongous.

Pace

Kids learn at their own pace. They neither lag behind nor sit bored wasting time.

Hobby Time

If your kid wants to take a piano class in between classes or wants to paint a magnificent portrait, they can. They get ample hobby time in peace. No missing breakfast or school buses anymore.

Input-Output Ratio

Your kid will learn what he wants to learn, when he wants to learn it. Do you know, as a kid Einstein could not perform well in any subject except mathematics?

Parenting Made Easy

You as a parent do not have to meet teachers or the principal anymore.

However, Online education needs self-discipline and motivation. With these things it can be very rewarding.