Virtual Nerd

877-677-NERD

http://www.virtualnerd.com/

The slogan for Virtual Nerd is "Real help in Math and Science". Well, after using their online tutoring website, I find their slogan to be true. Being a high school math teacher, I am oftenskeptical about online tutoring programs. I guess I'm just old fashion. When I think of a math tutor, I'm thinking real person, not a video. So when the Virtual Nerd gave me a free six week membership in exchange for my honest opinion of their program I tried to keep an open mind. Well, I was pleasantly surprised with the program. I found the videos to be of good quality and the online tutors spoke clearly. The concepts were explained in an easy to understand manner and I especially appreciated the notes that were in the side margin.

Virtual Nerd includes tutorials in Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 & 2, and Intro to Physics. We only used the math portion since none of my children are studying physic at this time. However, I did browse through the Physic program, which looks very similar to the math sections.

Each subject area of Virtual Nerd has a search engine, where you enter a topic. For example, my son is working on solving multi-step equations. When we typed in multi-step equations, quite a few videos pop up. You can then browse through the videos to see which ones addresses the specific topic. The short videos include a tutor explaining a concept as they write on a white board. In the right margin, summary notes are listed.

We also used the Algebra 2 section and found it quite useful. Here's what my Algebra 2 student had to say about Virtual Nerds:

Overall I loved the site! Everything was nicely laid out, and the format is easy to use. I like that you can pause the video whenever you want to apply it to your own problem. Also it's nice having an actual person there explaining it, because she covers little details that might not otherwise get covered if they just gave you the steps. It's also useful to have them lay out the steps one by one over to the right so you can use them without having to watch the whole video again. The only real problem I had with the site was difficulty finding what I was looking for. If you search a topic it may give you a list of 50 different things, a lot of which don't even apply to your search. So the site is helpful... if you can find what you need. It helps a little if you're very specific with what you type in. For example, saying "solving a quadratic equation with the quadratic formula", instead of just "quadratic equations".
So that's pretty much it. There wasn't too much that I didn't like about the program.

How much does it cost to use the Virtual Nerd website?

The standard subscription rate for the Premium Plan is $49 per month. They also offer 3-month, 6-month and 12-month packages, which result in substantial savings.

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