TOS Review: Virtual Nerd

Do your junior high and high school level children struggle with Math?  Do you sometimes wish there was someone else who could come alongside you and explain a concept to your child?  Do you wish you could hire a tutor for your son or daughter but just can’t seem to find the money or the time?  Then Virtual Nerd just may meet your needs.

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We’ve just had the opportunity to review Virtual Nerd. What is Virtual Nerd? It is an online subscription service that provides video tutorials for math and (some) science topics. Currently available levels for math include:  Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 and Algebra 2.   For science, Virtual Nerd  currently has available Physics.    If you click here you can find at the bottom of page one a chart listing the courses they are planning to add during 2011.

Before I get much farther let me explain what Virtual Nerd is NOT.  It is not a complete math program.  It is not a math course.  There are no worksheets.    Virtual Nerd is to be used as a tool to aid in understanding math concepts and does not replace a teacher or curriculum.

How does it work? After logging in to the website you are taken to the preferences tab.  Next to the preferences tab are tabs for the courses that are currently available.  Click on the tab for the course you want.   You can either do a search or read through the list of topics.  (Topics do overlap some between courses). 

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After selecting your topic you watch a video explaining the concept step by step.  What makes this program stand out, however, is the ability to “drill down”.  Let’s say that you select a topic but while watching you realize that you don’t understand an underlying concept.  You can click on concepts that form the foundation of the topic you selected.

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Drilling Down

Three of my girls used Virtual Nerd.  Tailorbear (age 11, grade 6) watched topics that interested her from the Pre-Algebra course while BooBear (age 15, 10th grade) sought out specific topics from the Algebra 1 course to help her review as she finishes up her regular Algebra 1 program.  Turtlegirl (age 13, grade 8) did a combination of searching and watching topics that interested her and choosing specific concepts to help her with her regular math program.  She choose a variety of videos from both the Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1 courses.

Tailorbear enjoyed the video presentations and said “they make sense.”  BooBear found searching for specific skills or concepts to be frustrating.  I have to agree that it was often difficult to search however, I could usually find what I needed by just reading through the  options below the search bar. 

I think Turtlegirl benefitted the most from Virtual Nerd.  She used it nearly daily to help her complete her math worksheets.  She also enjoyed using it to learn about concepts that interested her but that she did not necessarily need to know for her assignment.  I think she enjoyed Virtual Nerd more than the other girls.

Currently there are four pricing plans available ranging from $5 for a 24 hour subscription to $129 for a 3 month subscription.  Click HERE for more details.  There is also a 2 hour free trial available HERE.

If you would like more information about Virtual Nerd as a company click HERE.  For more information about the founders of Virtual Nerd click HERE.  There plans to add more features so be sure to keep checking the Virtual Nerd website in the future.

To see what my fellow crew mates have to say about Virtual Nerd click on the banner. Photobucket

Disclaimer: As a TOS Crew member, I received this product free of charge to review. This review is my honest opinion with, hopefully, enough detail as to why I liked or did not like a product so that my readers can make an informed decision. I received no compensation.

Virtual Nerd provided me with a free 6 week online subscription to their website for review.

Comments

  1. Great Review. I love it that all three of your peeps got to use it. It is nice to know that a mere 5 dollars could help me get un-frustrated. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great Review. I love it that all three of your peeps got to use it. It is nice to know that a mere 5 dollars could help me get un-frustrated. :)

    ReplyDelete

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