Trouble With Trig? Get the Khan Academy iPhone App

February 3, 2011 by Joel Milani

Math was, hands down, my most difficult class in college. It wasn’t even advanced math. I think I’d actually learned the same material years before, in 8th grade algebra. The trouble was, I hadn’t used those basic algebraic principles in so long, I’d forgotten everything.

If only there had been some resource . . . a place where I could brush up on the basics and even get help on more complicated concepts.

If I’d known about the Khan Academy in college, math class might have been less of a drag.  The Khan Academy, which is now available as an iPhone web app, is a collection of video lessons primarily focused on mathematics, with a few other subjects thrown in. Salman Khan, the founder of the Academy, teaches most of the lessons, which range from quadratic functions to banking principles, and even brainteasers. Here’s a bit about Mr. Salman, and one of his brainteasers:

Sal is the Founder, Executive Director, and Faculty of the Khan Academy. He started the Khan Academy as a way to tutor his cousins remotely–while he was a hedge fund analyst in Boston, and they were students in New Orleans. He started posting videos on YouTube, and more and more people kept watching. It was clear there was a huge unmet need, so Sal left his hedge fund job and started Khan Academy with the mission of providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere.

This is another excellent online resource along the same lines as iTunes U and Supercool School. If there are any other free online resources that have saved your grade in the past, let us know about them in the comments section.

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Photo by Gabrielsleitao