I took an online college math course, and I'll back up such courses for kids learning. It was the best math course I took.
I had trouble in 'traditional' courses. I completely missed algebra one year. Simply didn't get most of the concepts. I'd listen in class, I'd take notes, read the book, and do the homework nearly every night (Heh. Teenager). And I generally would do poorly on the homework, despite thinking I had done the process correctly.
With the online program, I still used pen and paper. Entered in an answer. The difference was I'd get immediate feedback on whether the answer was correct, and then get the option to try again.
The program had a system that would walk me through the problem, having me solve step by step, explaining on the way. It would repeat this process with similar problems as much as necessary. Then give a similar problem for me to answer for the homework.
In addition, there were study tests. These did not have the help feature (like the actual tests), but did give immediate feedback and suggested certain things you needed improvement on.
These things were really key to my being somewhat confident in math and passing the course. Of course, i'm pretty sure they could be software instead of online which would solve a single problem.
Now, I might be unique. I think I'm mildly dyslexic - I still mispell some simple words, get times tables mixed up, and have to think about right and left, for example. But the computer software (and calculators, to a lesser extent) help me know where I commonly have mistakes, much like spellcheck helps me out greatly.
I had trouble in 'traditional' courses. I completely missed algebra one year. Simply didn't get most of the concepts. I'd listen in class, I'd take notes, read the book, and do the homework nearly every night (Heh. Teenager). And I generally would do poorly on the homework, despite thinking I had done the process correctly.
With the online program, I still used pen and paper. Entered in an answer. The difference was I'd get immediate feedback on whether the answer was correct, and then get the option to try again.
The program had a system that would walk me through the problem, having me solve step by step, explaining on the way. It would repeat this process with similar problems as much as necessary. Then give a similar problem for me to answer for the homework.
In addition, there were study tests. These did not have the help feature (like the actual tests), but did give immediate feedback and suggested certain things you needed improvement on.
These things were really key to my being somewhat confident in math and passing the course. Of course, i'm pretty sure they could be software instead of online which would solve a single problem.
Now, I might be unique. I think I'm mildly dyslexic - I still mispell some simple words, get times tables mixed up, and have to think about right and left, for example. But the computer software (and calculators, to a lesser extent) help me know where I commonly have mistakes, much like spellcheck helps me out greatly.