I discovered this site at my kid’s open house at Wall High School.
Brightstorm is a learning solution providing video content for students. Subjects covered include: SAT and ACT prep, Algebra, Geometry, Trig and Precalculus.
As stated on the website:
For students, they’re given the choice of teachers and the opportunity to learn from some of the best teachers. With an on-demand format, students can go at their own pace, choose their own order, and easily jump to any section in the video to parallel their own class to tailor to their own learning needs. Each course includes interactive quizzes, facts as well as bonus materials like practice problems and study guides that they use with the videos to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.
Brightstorm is sponsored by Korea’s KTB Ventures, and as reported by TechCrunch, has quite a few competitors:
But there are plenty of startups trying. Here in the U.S., there is PrepMe,
ePrep, Teach The People, and Grockit. In Asia, there is iKnow in Japan and perhaps the biggest success to date is Korea’s Megastudy.
Originally offering paid courses, they have now launched the free math help. from their press release:
Brightstorm’s mission is to bring great teaching to the world. The company recruits the best teachers in the country, and then works with them to create high-quality, video-based learning solutions. Brightstorm’s free math help offering includes over 1,800 videos of great teachers explaining every topic contained in Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2 and Precalculus. The videos are short, averaging about 5 minutes each, to correspond to the attention span of the online generation. For each math topic, the teacher has a short video explaining the concept and then a few short videos walking through sample problems.
“The whole purpose of this is for that student who goes home, is working on their homework assignment, and for some reason they’re just not getting it,” says Brian McCall, Brightstorm’s Geometry teacher. “They have to get their homework done, but they don’t have that teacher right next them. Now, with Brightstorm, every student can have a great teacher at their side.”
“Brightstorm’s free math help is a major step toward achieving our vision of a world in which millions of students learn through technology,” says Brightstorm CEO Jeff Marshall. “In today’s networked world, there is no reason why a student should struggle with their math homework. Students should be able to have easy access to great teachers explaining the concepts they’re struggling with. That’s what Brightstorm’s free math help solution is all about.”
Brightstorm continues to look for more teachers to provide lessons. The next Teaching Idol?!?
