Watch out: free online course site had terrible math material

I was trying to learn some basic algebra to help my kid with homework and had to pick between Khan Academy and this other free site called MathHelpNow. I went with MathHelpNow because their homepage looked cleaner with big colorful buttons. Big mistake. The videos were from 2008 with a guy mumbling into a bad mic, and the practice problems had wrong answer keys on three separate quizzes. I caught one that said 2+3=6 and almost closed my browser right there. My kid got confused and started doubting her own work. I finally switched to Khan Academy after a week of frustration and it was night and day better with clear explanations and working answer checks. Has anyone else gotten burned by a free resource that looked good on the surface?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_vera27d ago

At least they're preparing kids for real life where answers just don't make sense sometimes.

vera_sanchez27d ago

Hold on now, I don't think we need to turn every school assignment into a grand lesson about life's mysteries. Kids these days get enough confusing stuff thrown at them without us making a bigger deal out of a poorly written worksheet. Maybe the teacher just had a bad day or didn't proofread. Sometimes an answer key is wrong and that's all there is to it. Let's not pretend random math errors are some deep preparation for the chaos of adulthood.