We all know that there’s no shortcut. The best – and the only – way to master math is to practice, practice, and practice and MathBoard for iPad was built to do just that, to help users improve their basic math skills using quizzes. This $4.99 app does it in style.

From One Quiz To Another

As a father of two little daughters – one in kindergarten and the other in early elementary school, I have first hand experience with the difficulty of regularly coming up with lots of math exercises to give to my children. I personally think the price I paid for the app is well worth the money. Not only does the app generate continuous flows of math problems, but it can also produce problems with different levels of difficulty. So the app will be useful for years to come, for all levels of students (including their parents) and the amazing thing is, children love using MathBoard on the iPad.

MathBoard’s interface is divided into several panes – the main pane displaying individual math problems, the “Result” pane displaying a list of student results for each problem, the “History” pane displaying a list of saved quizzes, and the “Settings” pane customizing the quizzes.

A quiz will start after you tap on “Play“. You will be presented with one problem at a time, and you can tap on one of the answers to continue to the next problem.

You can use the lower part of the board to calculate the answer. Write the numbers using your finger and tap “Expand” if you need more room to write.

There are five different colors of chalk and one eraser you can use. Tap “shrink” to go back to the problem pane.

To increase the difficulty level, you can choose the “Fill in the blanks” option instead of “Multiple choice” from the “Settings“. You can use the up and down arrows to choose numbers for your answer, or you can summon the keypad by tapping the small square to the left of the problem.

If you are stuck, you can use the “Problem Solver“. This feature will reveal the steps needed to solve the problem. But please note that every problem that is solved using this feature will be considered as a wrong answer.

You can get more information on every step that has a small “i” next to it. Tap the “i” to reveal the information bubble.

You can stop in the middle of the quiz if you want to by clicking on the “x” icon at the top left of the problem pane.

After finishing one set of problems in a quiz, you will get a summary of your performance – including the number of correct answers and the time you needed to finish the quiz.

Then you can save the quiz for future reference.

You can also play the quiz again. Choose whether you want to start a new quiz, replay the previous quiz, or just replay the wrong answers from the previous quiz.

Quick Look At The Settings

“Settings” is the place for you to customize MathBoard. Choose the operators that you want to use in the quiz – from the simplest addition and subtraction, to the more complicated ones like cubes and square root. Use this option to increase or decrease the difficulty level to fit the student’s competence level.

Decide how many numbers you want the student to solve in every quiz under the “Problems” option. Decide also whether you want the problems to be “multiple choice” or “fill in the blanks“.

The next part is all about setting up the number range and digit limit. Enable the “Allow Negative Answers” option for higher level students.

The last set of settings deals with Time Style (Elapsed or Countdown), Sound Effects, and LanSchool (if MathBoard is used within a school or personal network with LanSchool software enabled).

As a little bonus, you can also view multiplication, addition, and subtraction tables and problem solvers from the lower part of the Settings pane.

A math learning assistant app might not be for everyone, but if you do need one, I think MathBoard is one of the best choices out there.

Don’t forget to check out these other math-related articles: Multiplication Tool: Math Study Tool for Learning Multiplication, RealWorldMath: Use Google Earth To Teach Math Through Demonstrations, and 5 Cool Free Internet Games for Kids That’ll Make them Love Math.

Have you tried MathBoard? What do you think about the app? Do you know or use other similar math iPad apps? Share your findings in the comments below.

Image credit: quinn.anya

It is serious stuff and for long was a matter of national pride as the U.S and U.K went head to head with their measurement systems. Thankfully, the SI system became the universal standard. For me, it was just my homework and the headache of getting my pounds and pints right. Kilograms and liters (or is it litres?) seemed so much easier. Online unit converters and calculators save the day today. It’s no longer a case of 1,000,000 headaches = 1 mega-headache as online unit converters do the math with a click.

Here are ten of them.

Sooeet

It is an offbeat name for an all-in-one unit converter. The free online tool covers all the common conversions you might use in your daily life; some purely mathematical and others (clothing size, cooking) for functional. Exchange rate calculators again are one useful tool that gives you the currency conversions with a fair degree of real time accuracy. (See Directory mention)

Converticious

The free online converter handles temperature, volume, distance, weight, area, data, time, and speed unit conversions. The interface is very user-friendly with large icons and bulleted units which you can select for your instant conversion needs. (See Directory mention)

Convert Center

Engineering students and others too can make use of the variety of conversion options on this site. Molar mass unit conversions or frequency wavelength unit conversions will appeal to the scientifically minded. I am more interested in finding out how many gallons I can get to the liter with the fuel conversion tool. (See Directory mention)

Convert World

Convertworld.com ratchets up with a few more options like wind speed conversion, absorbed dose tool, TV & monitor size converter, and a ‘language’ conversion tool, among a lot of other scientific options. You can view the converters by selecting from your choice of 28 languages. (See Directory mention)

Conversion Tool

This cool looking conversion tool supports just three measurements – Length, Temperature, and Weight. But if you are looking to equalize how the Americans say it as against the British, this simple tool should do the job quickly. Put in the figure, select the unit and out pops the equivalent measurement on the other scale. (See Directory mention)

Online Conversion

Onlineconversion.com is another simple free online unit converter that has calculators relating to nearly 5,000 units, and 50,000 conversions. They are arranged in categories on the landing page. Check out the Miscellaneous category which has measurement tools for cholesterol, blood sugar, blood-alcohol content, GPA, wind chill, room area, typography, and a lot of other offbeat calculators.

Unit Converters

Unit Converters is another simple site to the extent of its interface. Otherwise, the online service is chock-a-bloc with scientific and engineering unit converters ranging from the common to the more technical ones like radiology and magnetism.

Online Converter

The one unique conversion tool I found on this otherwise simple site is the tool that takes a piece of text and converts it into the dots and dashes of Morse Code. The other unit converters relate to the usual lineup of time, distance, pressure, energy and work, volume, speed etc.

Metric Conversions

Metric-conversions.org is worth a mention not because it contains a unique conversion tool but because it is the only one I came across that lets you download ‘cheat sheets’ of conversion tables in printable formats. Inspite of the presence of one-click online tools, the printable downloads could serve as handy reference.

Converter (Firefox Add-on)

Converter is a useful Firefox add-on that works seamlessly with any figures you might have on the web page. It works via the right-click menu (select a figure and right click to see the options) or via the neat add-on bar where a single click converts all measurements on the page. You can also setup a custom conversion by right clicking on the icon on the add-on bar and entering your measurement values.

Of course, if you are an expert Google user, you can simply use the Google search bar for some quick fire unit conversions and calculations. You can even use the powerful Wolfram Alpha engine. But these ten web tools do give you broader options. Each one of the ten tools brings something new to the table. Do you have your own free online unit conversion web app to add to the list?

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

With a simple program from Microsoft named Microsoft Mathematics 4.0, you have the full power of a graphing calculator – and more – right at your computer.

Let’s go over some of the neat features this program provides and how it can help with homework or other math functions.

When you launch the program you have an interface that is very similar to any other graphing calculator. You can enter your numbers and calculations directly into the program by either pressing the buttons with your mouse or just typing it in.

Think of it as the built-in Windows ‘calc’ program on steroids.

You can also draw your calculations and Mathematics will try to decipher your drawing into an equation. This is helpful if you receive an problem but don’t know exactly how to enter it into the program. It works fairly well, but does have some difficulty decoding some more complicated equations.

Of course the core of a graphic calculating program is the graphs it can make. Entering the equations into the “equation” portion of the program allows you to graph multiple lines on the same chart.

Once you get used to the program, you can actually get very fancy with your graphs. Entering the right commands in the software will translate to a graph on the worksheet:

Another interesting portion of the program is the equation solver. Once you type in an equation it will help you step through to solve it for one of the variables you have listed. After it is solved, you can then graph it in 2d or 3d to help visualize the equation and learn what it actually does.

If you are interested in learning how you can apply Microsoft Mathematics to help your child or student learn mathematics, Microsoft offers this free guide to give you learning ideas.

The Equation Library built into the program also gets you started on some interesting ways you can enter data into the program.

The final feature I’d like to go over is the Triangle Solver. The solver takes all of the legwork out of figuring out the remaining angles or length of a triangle and will also let you know exactly what type of triangle it is.

On a personal note, when I was going through high school I relied heavily on a graphing calculator to do all of my work for me. Although I was very good at translating problems into a format the calculator can read, I ignored the underlying concepts which lead me to receive good grades, at least for the mean time. Once I went to college and was no longer able to use a calculator I had a very tough time adjusting. Please make sure to use this program responsibly and actually learn the underlying principles.

Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 can be downloaded here and is free. It is only available for Windows, however if you have VirtualBox you will be able to run it on any other OS.

Have you used Microsoft Mathematics before? Do you know of some alternative software you can use in place of it? Let us know in the comments below!

I’ve recently had this happen to me many times in a multi-variable calculus class, and while I headed to tutoring and office hours, there were still times that I saw and understood what the tutor or professor did, but when I tried the problem by myself, I wouldn’t know how to continue the problem or get to the right answer. I’ve found the following resources incredibly helpful as they can really show you the snippets of information you need and will always be available on-site for you to go back to.

PatrickJMT (“Just Math Tutorials”)’s YouTube Channel

Patrick, the author behind all these math videos, holds a Masters in math, and more than 900 videos on math topics, ranging from pre-Calculus to Algebra and Calculus. PatrickJMT’s videos contain thorough explanations of even the hardest topics using nothing but plain marker and paper. Then, rather than throwing them at you with mathematical jargon, he tells you (in a soothing voice) what and how you’ll need to solve the problem in layman’s terms.

Simple and straight-to-the-point, he usually goes over a topic’s definition, then illustrates it with plenty of problems, guiding you through each step and also telling you how he simplified it by skipping a step. Some of his videos can up close to 10 minutes long, but that’s a very short time compared to the 50 or 60 minutes you spent in class trying to comprehend your professor.

Here is a video where he explains the basic concept of limits.

The concept of recording the process of solving a math problem is absolute genius, but the value of these videos really depends on whether the tutor guides you through the steps and whether the tutor can help you regularly. Well, Patrick not only goes through an entire problem for all topics without skipping and making leaps between steps, he also posts videos regularly, which he has been doing since 2008. Even the author’s website has playlists for all topics in Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus and Statistics. For fun, he also posts interesting puzzles to be solved mathematically.

Here’s his latest one, talking about the Monty Hall problem.

MathTV’s Youtube Channel

Compared to PatrickJMT’s videos where you can only hear the instructor while he does the problem, MathTV’s videos feature a very clear, smiling (makes you enjoy videos more!) and patient professor who goes through math concepts and various problems.

The style of teaching is basically the same: He goes through the concept with easy-to-understand terms and solves problems by applying the concept. Not only does the professor excel at teaching with clear explanations, but what’s cool is that he also provides motivational and study skills videos to encourage students to not give up when they face difficult math problems or feel like they can’t do math.

Here’s one of Mr McKeague, the instructor in the videos, with a study skills tip.

Then, here’s Mr McKeague in another math video online, explaining the concepts of  limits.

Although the channel hasn’t been updated in a year, the website looks active with playlists and links to online textbooks for anyone to purchase and receive the premium content. The YouTube channel itself contains more than 50 free videos with topics in high school and college-level math.

Overall, these two great resources are helpful for anyone in college-level math classes, with topics such as multi-variable Calculus and can be of assistance when you want someone to simply tell you what exactly you’re trying to achieve without the jargon. For additional help resolving problems, you should check out the web-based Mathway.

Would you rather go to traditional tutoring or are open to multimedia lessons to aid your learning? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Image Credit: d3 Dan

Over the last week or so, I’ve downloaded a handful of practical apps fully optimized for the iPad. This is not a definitive list by a long shot, but if you’re an iPad owner, you will no doubt want to add one or more of these free iPad apps to your collection.

My Secret Diary

There’s no shortage of word processing applications for iPad, and rightly so. The size and orientation of the device invites users to type and write on it almost as if they were writing on a notebook pad. If you would like to maintain a diary or journal on your iPad, My Secret Diary [iTunes Store link] is very well designed app with some great features for keeping your private thoughts.

Just as with a traditional paper diary, a date is automatically stamped on each entry, but you also have the option of changing it with the built-in calendar. The above left side of the journal contains a nice set of menu features, enabling you to add yellow sticky notes, smiley stickers, photos and various types of bookmark icons.

If you like listening to music while you write, you can even access your iPad’s iTunes library right from within the application.

Finally, My Secret Diary includes a three-digital lock code for keeping your personal thoughts private, but unfortunately this feature doesn’t work in the version I downloaded. I’m sure it will be fixed in the next update.

LifeForms

One of the best reasons for owning an iPad is that it enables you to do paperless reading and writing. There are several apps for reading PDFs and other types of documents on the device, but an app called LifeForms [iTunes Store link] is one of the few which allows you to fill in digital forms on the iPad.

That’s right, you can import PDF forms into the application and use the text, date, signature, and notes features to fill in the text fields. It works like layers in Photoshop, which means you set data and then move the layered text onto the appropriate space on the form. There’s also a feature that enables you to hand write your signature, save it, and add it to forms.

When you’re finished filling out the form, you can export it via email, iTunes, or print it directly on a supported wireless printer.

Terra

If you’re a dedicated iPad user, you probably find the default Safari browser limited in some areas. There are some really great alternative browsers in the App Store, but the best free one of the bunch seems to be one called, Terra [iTunes Store link].

I’ve used this browser for about a week, and I have found it to be a clean and feature rich application that includes full-screen browsing, unlimited tabs, passcode protection for securing browsing activity, and the ability to save images from a web page, as well as save and archive pages for offline reading.

Because many of these features are missing from Safari, you might very well put Terra in the home dock or the home page of your iPad for regular use.

Windowshop

If you’re an avid Amazon customer, you might want to check out its new application for the iPad called Windowshop [iTunes Store link]. In Windowshop, you can now shop for both paper and Kindle books, as well as other products, in one application, instead of the two in the previous versions.

There are so many categories of merchandise in this online store””including books, electronics, movies and TV””that you can only view and read it in landscape mode.

All the other traditional features””wish lists, shopping cart, product details””are included in this latest version as well.

Mad Math Lite

If you’re an iPad user and you have kids, you absolutely know you need to keep a folder of games and educational apps as part of your collection.

I downloaded Mad Math Lite [iTunes Store link] for my son, and he has found it to be an easy to use flash card application for reviewing math problems.

Mad Math can be set up for various types of equations, plus it includes a timer and report card for goal settings.

The large colorful, interactive buttons, and font styles make it very easy for kids to read and use.

Your Suggested Free Apps?

Though the apps describe above are free, they won’t be collecting digital dust in my iPad. I’m also sure you have a handful of freebies that you recommend; so let us know about them. And if you’re looking for more recommendations, check my first list of 10 free iPad apps posted back in April.

Today, if you’re an engineering or a science student and you want a useful and fast math computer program that can solve complicated math or algebraic equations in just seconds, you have a whole plethora of options on the Internet.

One of the best free applications that I discovered for this purpose is called Deadline. Need to calculate derivatives, integrals or the roots of an equation? Not a problem. Want to save the resulting graph to a report or a document filled with your homework solutions? It’s easy, just run Deadline and you can generate, manipulate and save any graph and the resulting mathematical solutions.

Solve Equations & Math Problems

When you first start the Deadline Wizard, you’ll have an opportunity to type in your equation, enter all of the equation parameters, and also type in the x-axis interval (the range of values that will be used in the formula to generate the graph of results).

When you click OK, you’ll instantly see a plot of your entire graph. In the top right field, you can modify whatever parameters you used in the equation on the first screen. This is useful because you can graphically see how changing each parameter changes your entire set of results. In this example, increasing “m” shifts the entire graph up.

You can also click on the roots (where the formula solution is zero), and you’ll see those roots represented in the graph as large green dots. You can also change the resolution of the graph by reducing or increasing the number of “points” used in the generation of the graph. Obviously, 1000 points will create a nice and smooth graph, but you can decrease it down to only 10 points to see how this affects results.

Working With Mathematical Solutions For Your Formulas

The nice thing about Deadline is that it doesn’t just graph results. You can actively change the formula or parameters as part of the graphic process. When you click Calculate -> Evaluate from the menu, you’ll see the three derivative results (f, f’ and f”) for each value of x that you’d like to test.

If you’re familiar with derivatives, you can select Calculate -> Derive to view the differential equations based on your original formula. This may not be useful for basic math problems, but for students working on advanced calculus or engineering problems, this can be extremely useful.

Even more useful to engineers and scientists is the ability to calculate and view the integrals for your equation. The integral is basically the amount of area between your graph of results and the x axis of the chart. Knowing this total area for a certain range is very valuable information, and this graphic software offers that answer with just a few keystrokes.

Under the “Calculate” menu item, you’ll also see the “find Extrema” tool, which gives you the peaks (extrema) of the graph in the range that you’ve displayed.

When you’re finished tweaking the chart with the parameters that you want, you can save the current graph to an image file (PNG format). This is obviously very useful for inserting the graph results in reports or homework solutions that you may be working on. In this format, you could also insert the graphs directly into a website or online posting.

DeadLine also comes with a built in “calculator” for those complicated math problems that have no variables. This is great for complex math problems that you just can’t do in your head.  Do you have 20 apples that you sell for 10 dollars each and want to divide among 4 friends and their 2 siblings? Just kick open the calculator and type “(20*10)/(4*2)” and you’re done.  No matter how complicated the problem, the calculator will always pull through.

As you type in each equation, the equation and resulting solution gets logged in the top window. I find the Deadline graphic and math calculator to be one of the most useful and functional math computer programs that I’ve discovered so far.

I would love to hear what you think of it, and whether you know of any other similar, or more useful and fast math computer programs that get the job done just as well.

Image Credit: Kim André Silkebækken

Every year, thousands of students with dreams of going to a good college, try to prepare themselves for the SATs and find that there are tons of paid resources, but not many free ways to study. Parents search for ways to help their kids but find themselves having to spend hundreds of dollars on study material.

Well, with a belief that everyone should have the same opportunities, I have prepared a list of sites where any student can prepare for the SAT test for free. Study along”¦

Math TV

Math TV is a site that has a full list of tutorial videos on topics that range from basic math to Calculus. Videos are broken into short but very useful lessons that vary between 5 and 10 minutes in length and are very clear. It is almost like watching your teacher explain the material, since they make use of a white board to develop the problems. They also have several online books on the topics you are studying that you can access for free.

The only problem is that you can’t raise your hand if you have a question.

Major Tests

Major Tests is one of the cleanest test prep sites I’ve encountered and it’s incredibly easy to navigate. It has a large collection of prep tests for the SATs, GRE, GMAT as well as a nice word list with over 1500 words. The tests are short and divided into several segments. You get graded after doing each one. The wrong answers have explanations so it’s easy to keep track of how you are doing, and correct whatever you’ve been having problems with.

Purple Math

Purple Math is a great resource of tutorials from all topics you might need for the SATs and more. The explanations are helpful, the exercises are a good way to practice your new skills and their step by step explanations make following the topics a very simple process. Tutorials go from decimals and fractions to trigonometry. The best way to access the lessons is by using the right hand side menu and selecting “Lessons Index”.

Want to have all this material to study on the go?  You can also download all the lessons or order a CD for a very affordable $10 to $18, but you’d get the same material that is readily available for free on the site.

VocabTest

VocabTest has a series of English tests for all levels and it’s great practice for any student. Levels are divided by grade, from Middle School to AP Senior. Select a level and take a test. It will tell you whether you are right or wrong and in the end, provide you with an explanation of the words and your average score compared to other students. A great tool to improve your vocabulary.

Math.com

With several explanations in various topics, Math.com can be a valuable resource for those who just want to review a topic and clear up issues with particular problems. The site is slightly confusing, with a lot of ads and not the best navigation, but the material is well written. They do not provide very extensive tutorials, but serve as a quick overview of materials you are already acquainted with. It’s a good general review site.

So now that you have access to the information, no more excuses. All it takes is some determination and willingness to get a good SAT score. Have you helped someone study for a major test? Do you have a kid trying to make sense of these tests? Share your thoughts and ideas with us by posting a comment below.