Virtual Nerd. It’s a catchy name, isn’t it? The kind of name that catches your curiosity, and makes you (or the kids) look it up when you get home.
It’s more then just a memorable name, though. Virtual Nerd has hundreds of videos on upper level math and science, and is working hard at increasing their offerings. Currently offering Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 & 2, and Intro to Physics, they expect to increase coverage of Physics, and add Chemistry, Pre-calculus and Calculus by the start of the Fall 2011 school year.
They aim higher then just providing video tutorals – with a neat feature called a “Dynamic Whiteboard”, students can stop the video at any step, and seek additional information on how to do that particular portion of the problem.
How about a non-math example of how this feature works?
Say you have the following instructions:
How to Make Tacos
1. Brown the ground beef.
2. Shred the cheese.
3. Chop the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions.
4. Add some of each filling to a tortilla shell.
5. Enjoy!
Seems simple, right? But what if you’re working your way down that list of instructions, and all of a sudden you realize you don’t know what “shred” means? If it was a video solution on Virtual Nerd, you could click on step two, and it would open up a second screen that would explain to you exactly what shredding was, what you need to be able to shred, and how to go about doing it.
And then you’d be able to close it, and go right back back to your original problem recipe, and continue on with your (home)work.
Virtual Nerd is extremely easy to use. Topics are displayed in outline format, and branch into more specific topics as you click for more detail.
My 9th grader, Mike, spent a couple of hours meandering around the website. He’s doing Algebra and Geometry at the moment, and hasn’t been having any difficulty, so we didn’t have specific problems to look up.
Some of his thoughts:
-”I appreciate that the instructors are easy to understand.” (We’ve had some challenges lately with video material that uses presenters with a drastically different accent then we’re used to – it makes it twice the challenge to learn when you can’t even understand the person speaking.)
-”It’s not something I’d use every day. I’d only log on if I really had a problem with an assignment. And my math program already explains all the problems to me if I need it to.” (That would be one of my concerns – would it get enough use to be reasonable to subscribe to.)
-”It’s cool that they make it easy to find topics if you use one of the math texts that they cross-reference, but I don’t see any of the textbooks we use.” (He’s got a point there. Currently, the four texts listed are all for Algebra 1, and they appear to all be public school texts. They’ve stated that this feature is a work-in-progress, so I’d imagine that they’d be adding quite a few textbooks to that list in the future.)
All in all, when he reported back to me, his impressions were very much like mine.
The positives, in summary:
- It’s easy to use and understand.
- Virtual Nerd delivers on its promise of being nearly as good as a live-person tutor.
- There are updates and increased coverage of topics on the way
- The website was fast-loading and error-free.
And then are some things to think about:
The price. Yes, at $50/month via subscription, it’s technically cheaper then a live-tutor. Carefully consider whether your family will use the program enough to justify the expense.
This is a supplement, not a complete math program. Many homeschoolers already use complete math programs that provide additonal features that are similar to what Virtual Nerd offers.
More features and subjects are planned for the future. Individualized practice problems and quizzes are on the horizon, and they intend to cover several more subjects by fall 2011. That’s a plus, but the flip side is, once again, the price. Multiple students would need separate accounts to take full advantage of the features.
More pricing details
The standard recurring subscription is $49/month. They also offer a 3-month option for $129, a significant savings off the pay-by-the-month. Both of those are pretty pricy, especially if you’re paying for a supplement to your math curriculum.
But what if you just need some short-term help, or you want to try it out before commiting to a longer time? There are a few possibilities available to you.
If you’d explore the program for yourself and see what it has, there is a link to a free 2-hour trial at the very bottom of the Virtual Nerd sign-up page.
Or, if you’d like a longer trial – or have a really tough chapter that you’re working through, you could pay a one-time $5 fee for a 24-hour time period, or $19 for a week.
I can’t whole-heartedly recommend Virtual Nerd as something that every family should have. The price just doesn’t allow me to justify that, and Virtual Nerd isn’t one of those, “for everyone, all the time” sort of products.
But because it IS available 24/7, DOES work well, and is VERY intuitive to use, it IS something that can help you out with a math crisis. As an on-call online semi-personal tutor, I CAN fully recommend adding it to your “emergency toolkit”, on hand to rescue you at a moment’s notice when your normal, everyday solutions just aren’t going to cut it.
To see what other crew members had to say about this product, check out the TOS Homeschool Crew blog post, Virtual Nerd.
**I received this product for free as a member of the 2010-11 The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew so that I could provide you with an honest review of it by our family.**
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I love your son’s comments about this product. And, I wish my struggling math student had been more open to using Virtual Nerd while we had it.
We are pleased to inform you that because Virtual Nerd (www.VirtualNerd.com) has received such significant interest following your review of our online tutoring service, we are offering a special discount to homeschool parents. Homeschool parents can receive 50% off the 1 and 3 month subscription plans. Just enter the discount code: homeschooldeal when you sign up for service. That is a huge discount, and hurry – the offer is valid until March 31, 2011!
As a supporter of Virtual Nerd, we wanted you to know about our Math Boot Camp. To help students avoid the “summer slide”, we are offering boot camps in: Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, and Algebra II. The five-week camps cost only $19! A pre-quiz will assess student’s knowledge, and weekly playlists will be assigned to help them attain a better understanding of the subject and build upon concept knowledge. Finally we wrap up with a quiz that assesses how far they have come! We hope you will share the good news. Get started today!