Where should I go If I really want to read text?
I would go to http://www.ugrad.math.ubc.ca/coursedoc/math100/notes/index.html because the style that it was written in is easy to follow. Unfourtunatally unless I want to read all of http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf then I'm not going to get a lot of information other than derivatives.
Where should I go if I want to learn Visually?
http://www.calculus-help.com/tutorials would be the place to go, It was actually one of my favorites. I liked this because it was the most purely visual one I found, while other sites had diagrams (which were useful) I found this to be the best for me
Where should I go if I want to prepare for a Quiz by doing extra questions?
As I said this one was difficult to find something. What I decided was that looking back at worksheets and looking at some of the other websites on here would be more benificial.
What Calculus Help video website should I use, should I want to watch a video?
http://www.khanacademy.org/ would be the website I would use if I wanted to watch a video. I thought I would like watching videos, but unless I'm teaching myself the whole class, I don't see that I would want to use videos much. While they are good and informational, and probably some of the easiest things to understand, I don't usually want to spend all that time watching a video. They are nice if you don't get a specific rule (chain, quotient) because you can watch a quick video on them.
Where should I go for Pre Calc Review?
For a good Trig review I would use the Wiley PDF http://higheredbcs.wiley.com/legacy/college/anton/0471472441/appendices/appa.pdf . This may be because I'm used to their formatting since i've used it in other classes, but I really do believe that their text would be helpful to anyone.
Where should I go if I want someone (real person) to help me?
http://www.freemathhelp.com . This was an overall helpful site, and was a favorite of mine.I would use this one if I had an hour or more to get the answer, but If I was in a pinch I would probably use http://answers.yahoo.com/ just because answers come very fast.
What graphing calculator should I use?
I am sold on
http://rentcalculators.org/stheli.html for most everything graphing. It is the most familiar, compared to the TI 83+ that I use. The only problem is it doesn't show discontinuities on the graph (does on the table). For showing discontinuities I would use http://www.coolmath.com/graphit/, I would also use this for a general calculator, whereas the first doesn't have one. Between the two I can do a good amount of things that I could do with my actual graphing calculator.
How I found all of my sites?
I primary used google.com and calculus.org . Calculus.org was very helpful in finding sites, because they had sites listed by sections. While they didn't have everything I wanted they had some things that I couldn't find on Google. Between the two I believe I found nice sites for most of my questions.
Thursday
What are good sites for textual learners?
i. Although a textbook, it is easy to follow
ii. Easy to follow the stages the book goes through
iii. Labeled clearly with sections
iv. Gives examples and problems to do (ones that are practical in everyday use, or at least in use)
i. Has easy to follow text
ii. The text has a voice
iii. Sections easily found in bullet point system
iv. Has pictures (so this might have been a good one to put under visual learner, but I put it under textual because the text read so well)
i. Has a lot of examples
ii. Has text that flows through examples
iii. Easy to follow
iv. Colorful
Conclusion
I found it was fairly hard to find anything that was pure text. I tend to like (b.) the best, but maybe that’s because it has picture? But I really liked that the writing had a voice to it, it made it much more pleasing, and interesting to follow. (c.)’s strong point was on examples. I liked this website, but cannot say I would use it that often, because I would prefer something more visual.
What are good sites for visual learners?
i. Has interactive activities for different sections of calculus
ii. Fun drag and drop graphs for derivative and second derivatives
iii. Activities for future calculus classes
i. Plays like a video but has pictures
ii. Easy to hear
iii. Fun to watch ( lots of graphics)
iv. Fun to listen to (I would go so far as to say the guy is actually funny, but he’s not dull
v. Currently only videos for what we have learned so far (but it says more to come)
Conclusion
I loved (b.) with its animation. They were very helpful and easy to follow. (a.) has some good qualities, like the drag and drop activity for derivatives, but over all didn’t help me that much. I tried to find more I didn’t. I wasn’t expecting to find (b.) but ended up really liking it. I was hoping to animations with text describing what was happening, but didn’t seem to find anything like that.
Are there any quiz sites available to help me prepare for a test?
i. This quiz was on derivatives
ii. 4 choices are given, it will not let you move on until you get it right
iii. Once right you get to see the solution
Conclusion
There are not many quizzes out there that I could find. The one I did find seemed to be good, but was almost infinite at 60 questions (lots of practice I guess). There were some practice test sites I found, but eventually gave up trying to find them because they were so buried. Overall I’ve come to realize that extra quizzes aren’t really necessary if you are using other tools. If it’s extra problems you want you can assess your own ability by doing the questions in the textbook or extra questions on some of these sites.
Are there any helpful calculus videos?
i. Has all sorts of videos (they even say you can email them questions and it’s quite possible they will get back to you within a day)(+ chem. Videos if your taking chem.)
ii. There’s pre-calc video’s (more review)
iii. There’s videos for limits and derivatives and everything we’ve learned in Calc 1
iv. There are videos for what I assume would be helpful in calc 2 and 3
v. The guy who does the videos has a strong voice, and isn’t creepy
vi. He uses a white board, in which everything is visible
vii. Videos range from around 15min to 1 hour
viii. Kind of long introductions
i. Has many, many videos on everything calculus
ii. Has videos for specific rules, such as (chain rule, more chain rule, and quotient rule)
iii. There are videos for future calculus
iv. There are videos for everything from algebra review to pre calc review
v. Done on a computer screen with voice over
vi. Easy to understand
vii. Easy to find a the topic you’re looking for
i. Has a good amount of videos to pick from
ii. Is colorful and easy to watch
iii. The selection of videos is easy to watch
iv. The way things are explained make sense, but is not my preferred way of learning. It may be to others
v. Also has pre-calc videos
Conclusion
Out of the three sites I like (b.) the best. Although I did like that I could watch someone actually doing the problems in the first one the videos seemed to be a little drawn out and the sections were not cut up as much as (b.) and (c.). (b.) used color, they wrote out all the steps, had example, and explained concepts.
Is there a site that can help with trig review?
Sites I liked
i. This site is labeled “Trigonometry: A Crash Review”, It’s less of a crash and more of an intensive review
ii. While there is a lot of information on here, it’s doubtful that you need to review it all, but it’s easy to scroll down and find what you want
iii. It has a nice picture of a radian unit circle (you can even get it printed on a tee-shirt ; ) )
iv. Downsides, it has a lot of text, is all black on white, and just the look of it gets a little boring
i. This actually a pdf… and I’m pretty sure it’s from the appendix of our textbook, but I believe it counts because it’s online.
ii. Besides being from wiley and already having it, it’s very helpful.
iii. It goes through the review in a way that we should all be familiar with.
iv. It is organized well with the information and sample problems solved for you
v. There are diagrams that contribute to the contents of the text
vi. It’s nice/easy to look at, there are colors and variations in text size
vii. Since it’s in a handy pdf file you can print out specific reference pages easily
viii. Give sample problems but no solutions
i. Has a cool interactive unit circle, which although not all that useful can help you understand concepts. Oh. And it cuts off most of it.. but you can use your imagination?
ii. All the sections are listed under a title and then the main points are bulleted! (If you like the bullet system as I do than this will make your like happy)
iii. Under each section is information that is easy enough to follow
iv. There are nice diagrams
v. Explains things very simply (which I like and makes sense to me)
vi. Gives sample problems, then hints, then the solutions (and if you can’t figure it out after that try freemathhelp.com)
vii. Is it reputable? From Clark University
One I didn’t like so much
i. Has problems you can solve with links to text
ii. Have to go through a lot of pages to get to text
iii. The information is good; I just don’t like having to weave through all the pages to get to it. It’s not organized in a fashion I like.
iv. Is it reputable? Yes from a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston
i. Has bullet point organization
ii. Uses diagrams
iii. Good material, but the presentation was a lot of text, and it was hard to pick out specifics for review without reading the entire thing
iv. Focused on functions, and doesn’t cover a review of the unit circle
v. Is it Reputable? From Tennessee Technology institute
Conclusion
I think the Wiley (b.) site was the most helpful. It was really helpful that it was already in a style I was used to, but overall covered all the topics and displayed the information in an easy way. The one I thought was the next best useful was the one from Clark University (c.) It was easy to find the section you wanted to review, there were nice diagrams that went with the test, and they had a nice way of helping you do sample problems with hints.
Is there a good site for human powered help?
Good and Kind of OK sites
http://answers.yahoo.com/
i. Easy to post a question under mathematics or homework help
ii. Quality of answer or any answer at all is questionable
iii. Sometimes get really bad answers such as “…Ha Ha Ha get it u wanna learn about science and i said does it really MATTER. =) ha ha ha ha ha”
iv. Sometimes the answers are helpful, but not always as much as I would like. Sometimes people will solve the problem for you without explaining how.
v. Generally pretty fast answers if you are going to get them, within an hour, or else you can expect you will not receive one.
i. Responses on average took about an hour
ii. Responses were thorough and helpful
iii. Actually able to input symbols ( instead of having to type ^2 or sqrt(2)
iv. Can see the level of the member, which you can base on their experience answering questions
v. Easy to look through and find other peoples questions
vi. A section just for calculus
Conclusion
http://www.freemathhelp.com was very helpful. I found no real problems with it, except that it took a little while to get an answer, but the answers were worth it. I had a hard time moving away from Yahoo, just because I’ve been using it for so long. Like I said Yahoo can be good, but it’s a hit and miss kind of thing. But searching for something similar to your question in Yahoo can be beneficial because so many people use it, and it is likely someone else has asked a question similar to yours. I would have looked at more sites, but I found freemathhelp to be all that I needed.
Is there a good online graphing calculator/scientific calculator?
Good Ones
i. Easy to type in equation and graph it
ii. Can graph infinitive amount of lines on one graph
1. To re-graph a line one has to delete original from the graph and re-enter data
iii. Show discontinuity
iv. Easy to zoom in on a specific part of the graph by dragging a square.
v. Downside with the zoom is it’s hard to zoom out. The easiest way is to reset the graph and re-graph.
vi. Keeps a list of graphed equations on right hand side
vii. The scientific calculator works well as long as you put in all appropriate parentheses. Like any online calculator it can take a while to type out the data.
i. Easy to enter, and can change color of line
ii. Can add up to four equations, and all are displayed and can easily be changed and re-graphed. And the colors can be changed (Rainbow graphs!)
iii. Can click on individual equations and click trace, it will show your and give the coordinates of the y-intercept
iv. Can set the window to whatever you want
v. Shows a table which you can set yourself
vi. Table shows discontinuity, but does not on the graph
vii. Can plot points on the graph
viii. Finds intersection point of two lines
i. can graph more than one line but cannot change it after it’s graphed
ii. has a trace feature
Not so Terrific Ones
i. Found this one but it seems like it might have a virus.. wasn’t willing to find out
i. I tried this one, but it didn’t like my division sign “/” and couldn’t figure out what it wanted
Conclusion
I liked this one the best (b.) http://rentcalculators.org/stheli.html. It did almost everything I wanted except show discontinuities on the graph, but it did with the table. It was easy to use after using a TI-83+ all of these years; it had more features than any of the other ones that I looked at. I found all of these by Citations
algebra help.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/function/graphing/
Calculator for free.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.calculateforfree.com/graph.html
Calculus. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.brightstorm.com/math/calculus
Colthurst, T. (n.d.). Calculus index. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/wwmath/calculus/index.html
Cool math.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.coolmath.com/graphit/
Department of Mathematics, Initials. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ugrad.math.ubc.ca/coursedoc/math100/notes/index.html
Greenly, M. (n.d.). Umb precalculus review . Retrieved from http://cgi1.math.umb.edu/~greeley/PreCalculusReview/Diagnostics.cgi
Joyce, D. (n.d.). Dave's short trig course. Retrieved from http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/
Kelley, M. (n.d.). Calculus help . com. Retrieved from http://www.calculus-help.com/tutorials
Szapiel, M. (n.d.). Quiz on differentiating functions. Retrieved from http://archives.math.utk.edu/visual.calculus/2/formulas.2/index.html
Khan Academy, Initials. (n.d.). Khan academy. Retrieved from http://www.khanacademy.org/
Mathematics Department, Initials. (2005, September 29). Precalculus review. Retrieved from http://math.tntech.edu/machida/MATH_GO/Precalculus_Review/
Maths online. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.univie.ac.at/future.media/moe/galerie.html
Midnight tutor. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.midnighttutor.com/math_tutor_online.php
Rent calculators.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://rentcalculators.org/stheli.html
Runiter Company, Initials. (n.d.). Runiter company. Retrieved from http://calculator.runiter.com/graphing-calculator/online-graphing-calculator.htm
Thompson, S.P. (n.d.). Calculus made easy. Retrieved from http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf
Trigonometyr: a crash review. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.zaimoni.com/Trig.htm
Trigonometyr review. (2004, November 4). Retrieved from http://higheredbcs.wiley.com/legacy/college/anton/0471472441/appendices/appa.pdf
Wilcox, T. (2010). Free math help. Retrieved from http://www.freemathhelp.com/
Yahoo! answers. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://answers.yahoo.com/
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