Homework Help Online

Homework Help Online
There's plenty of homework help on the Web. But do any sites offer fast relief for algebra anxiety?
By MITCHEL BENSON

For me, there's really only one litmus test of the quality of an Internet homework site: Can it help me better cope with my fear of algebra word problems?

Sure, homework-help sites today offer so much more: science, foreign languages, history, detailed descriptions of everything from anthrax to zoology. The number of such sites and their use is growing dramatically.

A recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, found 100 sites that were specifically labeled as "homework help sites." What's more, 94% of youngsters ages 12 to 17 who have Internet access say they use the Internet for school research, according to the Pew report, and 78% say they believe the Internet helps them with all sorts of schoolwork.

Fear of Fractions

But for my money, there is no more accurate gauge of a site than whether it offers fast, fast relief from algebra anxiety.

The sweating palms, the heart palpitations, the broken pencils snapped in fits of rage -- I thought all that was behind me when I finished my high-school regimen of math classes three decades ago. But now, I have teenagers. So in my neverending effort to maintain my credentials as a "hecka cool dad," I turned to the World Wide Web to salve my word-problem paranoia and paralysis.

My college friend, Jeff, who would later become a successful comedian and writer, put it best. His stand-up act in the 1980s included a joke about word problems that went something like this:

There was this guy, Jimmy, who lived in Kansas City and was trying to figure out how to visit his girlfriend, about 400 miles away, in Chicago. Jimmy could take a bus, which traveled at 55 miles per hour and left at noon. Or he could take a train, which traveled at 70 mph but left at 1:30 p.m. Which would get him to Chicago faster?

Jeff's punchline? "I'm thinking, 'Hey Jimmy. It ain't worth it! Drop the chick!'"

I know that Jeff and I aren't alone.

As I surfed the Web recently in search of sanctuary, I came across a promising site. It was named, aptly enough, Math for Morons Like Us (library.thinkquest.org/20991/home.html1). "Word problems (or story problems) usually strike fear into the hearts of young and old math students alike!" begins the introduction to the section on word problems. "In all reality, they aren't that bad."

And indeed, the site did offer me hope that this might be so. Math for Morons, constructed and operated by students and their advisers at a high school in Utah, offers several word-problem examples with clearly explained solutions. I was on my way.

The fact that I found a math site so easily isn't surprising. Many students, student-teachers, educators and education-technology specialists familiar with the Internet's homework tools agree that the problem today isn't finding homework help on the Web. Instead, the challenge is to sift through the massive amounts of information to find what's most helpful, and then to use it appropriately.

'Questioning Answers'

"It's absolutely critical that students learn to evaluate information online," says Lauren Zollinger, managing e***or at StartSpot Mediaworks Inc., Evanston, Ill., which operates the excellent HomeworkSpot.com (homeworkspot.com2). "Questioning answers is just as important as answering questions."

Ms. Zollinger and others say that critical thinking is especially important as more students use the Internet not so much for math but for written assignments, which carry the temptation to plagiarize. Just because it's on the Web, "that doesn't mean you get to copy and paste it and say it's yours," says Ted Perry, educational technology manager for the San Juan Unified School District outside Sacramento, Calif. "It sure is tempting for someone to take whatever's there, and then go out and play. 'Jeez, here's a 10-page report already written.' They figure, it's OK to steal through Napster. Why isn't it OK to steal reports?"

Let's say I was searching for math information not to cheat but to better myself. That still leaves the need to sort through mounds of data. The more helpful homework sites organize their information on their home pages according to grade level (elementary, middle school or junior high, high school and above), and then by subject matter (math, science, social studies, etc.).

Even then, the sites can be overwhelming. It's important, experts agree, to know specifically what you're looking for before you sit down at the computer.

Chris Guenter, a professor of education at California State University, Chico, and the Web master of the education department's Web site, and Lynne Schrum, an associate professor of instructional technology at the University of Georgia, both recommend that students write down specific search words or keywords. "Have a focus," says Ms. Guenter. "It'll help you avoid tangents."

I thought of Ms. Guenter's advice -- but, admittedly, ignored it -- when I went to HomeworkSpot. I went right to the home page, where I quickly located the link to high-school math. But then... I was drawn to the "Do You Know?" feature, which asks and answers, "Why [do] your feet smell?"

Soon after, I pursued yet another tangent off the home page ("What are the world's fastest animals?"), before finally making my way to the intended destination -- HomeworkSpot's helpful link to a word-problem site.

HomeworkSpot's goal isn't to offer an all-encompassing depository of information, says Ms. Zollinger, but to connect students with the information they need "within one to three clicks." HomeworkSpot, launched in September 2000, takes "a less-is-more approach," she says. "Let's find the real gems and make them really accessible."

Other sites are more focused and targeted, such as Math for Morons. Another with a sense of humor is Purplemath.com (purplemath.com3), which bills itself as "Your Algebra Resource." The creation of a math instructor at Western International University in Phoenix, Ariz., Purplemath offers free online tutoring and "Homework Guidelines, or 'How *****ck up to your teacher.'"

Exhaustive Sites

Then there are the exhaustive portal sites. Consider Yahooligans.com (yahooligans.com4), from Yahoo Inc., Santa Clara, Calif. Yahooligans is generally acknowledged as the granddaddy and most comprehensive of homework help sites.

Catherine Davis, senior producer for the site, says Yahooligans was launched in 1996 as "a sheltered environment, from scratch, for kids" and today is targeted to the 7-to-12-year-old age group.

Type in "word problems" on the Yahooligans home-page search engine, and you're offered links to at least a half-dozen word-problem sites, including one that features "bewitching ad***ion and subtraction problems" designed by second-graders for Halloween, and another with a medieval theme for third- to sixth-graders.

Ms. Davis says all Yahooligans e***ors are former teachers who "look at every Web site, every picture, every word, every link on every page before making a decision to add it to the Yahooligans directory." Everything "has been looked at by a human e***or," she says. "That's one of the things that differentiates us from other searches."

At the companion site education.yahoo.com5, started last August and targeted at older students, teachers throughout the world can create their own password-protected help sites for their students. So far, says Ms. Davis, about 15,000 virtual classrooms have set up such sites at Yahoo Education, offering their students and parents message boards, homework assignments and class syllabuses 24 hours a day.

Some other sites, considered to be much more general interest, still offer students a remarkable smorgasbord of homework assistance. DiscoverySchool.com, a product of Discovery Communications Inc., Bethesda, Md., has a helpful word-problem site (school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/webmath/wordproblems.html6) that breaks down word problems into seven types, including ages, money, ratios and percents. DiscoverySchool also links to Tutor.com (tutor.com7), which offers free 15-minute sessions of one-on-one homework assistance from the site's tutors on all school subjects. The service is available on school nights, Sunday through Thursday, from 4 p.m. to midnight Eastern time.

Another is HowStuffWorks.com (howstuffworks.com8), a service of HowStuffWorks Inc., Cary, N.C. Founder Marshall Brain -- yes, his real name -- launched the site as a hobby in 1998 and then incorporated it a year later. Today, publicist Michael Kroll estimates, students represent 27% of the site's three million unique visitors each month, drawn as much by the articles about how different things work as they are by the extensive database of scientific experiments for students of all ages.

Branching Out

The site is still best known for its answers to mechanical questions -- how a car engine works, how a cruise missile works. Even so, that hasn't prevented the site's authors from explaining the hows and whys of Nostradamus, the U.S. draft, Osama bin Laden, flatulence and root beer.

But not word problems. A search of the site for "algebra and word and problems" drew a blank, though it does offer 10 links to other sites.

As Ms. Zollinger, the managing e***or of HomeworkSpot.com, points out, "Sometimes the Internet is not always the right source, because it's not always the necessary source. The dictionary is still sitting there on the shelf."

And mom and dad, bless their hearts, are still sitting down the hall in the living room, a glass of red wine in hand, staring blankly at a high-school algebra text lying next to a pile of broken pencils.


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Know Your Source

Questions to ask about information you find online:

Who is the author/creator?

Who publishes or maintains the Web site?

Is the site well maintained?

What are the possibilities that this information is in some way biased?

Should I use more than one search engine?

Did I get the best information, or did I miss some good Web sites?
For more-detailed pointers on evaluating online information, go to homeworkspot.com/features/evaluating.htm9 and www.uflib.ufl.edu/hss/ref/tips.html10

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