<p>I am beginning to look for curriculum for my son who will be in 9th grade next year. I also homeschool another son who has special needs and requires a lot of attention. Can anyone recommend either some online or video courses that my 9th grader can take. Typically, he needs a little more guidance in math and would not do well learning on his own. He does however do very well once he has direct instruction on a concept. Thanks for any suggestions.</p>
<p>For science, I find Thinkwell.com to be great and my 9th grade daughter likes the professor lecturing since he has good sense of humor! ALEKS math is very good, but has no teacher with whom to interact.</p>
<p>Not many video online courses will have an option to interact with a teacher, unless you sign up for either a cyber charter high school in your state or Keystone National High School, which comes with teacher feedback, but mixes textbook assignments with lessons and I don’t think offers much in the way of video. There are online highschools with excellent reputations, such as Indiana University ONline High School and others. There are also Christian-based whole curriculums which are respected, such as Abeka Academy and Agora. They often scatter a little Christian doctrine into the mix and will not teach evolution in their science courses. One of them I found seemed to want to talk students out of the idea that man may have impacted the environment and caused some global warming… So look carefully at each one. Good Luck!</p>
<p>I second Aleks.com. And since your original question was about video courses, I recommend Teaching Company videos - videos by award-winning college profs. Most of the classes are college level and some are high school level, but we’ve had good luck with the college level ones. Sometimes kind of dry, but always pretty good. They can be extremely expensive, but all courses go on sale fairly frequently, so you don’t have to pay that kind of money ever. They have no teacher interaction so they wouldn’t do for the math. teach12.com</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve checked out the websites and they all look good and interesting. As for the video verses online courses, I’m open to both. In the past, I just used the textbooks along with teacher’s editions and that worked fine. I’m just finding the demands of homeschooling a special needs child to be very demanding. I want to be very cautious not to compromise my 9th grader’s education. Thanks again for the suggestions.</p>
<p>These are not courses that you register for. These materials are useful to independent homeschoolers who design their own courses of study. Find your own texts and other materials to create your own courses. Some of the course descriptions may suggest texts. For example, the Annenberg French in Action program uses the Yale French in Action texts.</p>
<p>[Khan</a> Academy](<a href=“http://www.khanacademy.org/]Khan”>http://www.khanacademy.org/)
1000+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance. Also SAT test prep. All free.</p>
<p>[National</a> Repository of Online Courses (NROC)](<a href=“http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos.html]National”>http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos.html)
National Repository of Online Courses.</p>
<p>[Annenberg</a> Media](<a href=“http://www.learner.org/resources/browse.html]Annenberg”>http://www.learner.org/resources/browse.html)
Some video courses are dated but still useful.</p>
<p>[250</a> Free Online Courses from Top Universities | Open Culture](<a href=“1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities | Open Culture”>1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities | Open Culture)
Open Culture listing of free online courses. Mostly college level but some OK for high school.</p>
<p>[UCCP</a> Open Access](<a href=“http://www.ucopenaccess.org/]UCCP”>http://www.ucopenaccess.org/)
U. of California Open Access K12 Courseware
Includes virtual biology & environmental science labs.</p>
<p>[Subjects</a> | Academic Earth](<a href=“http://www.academicearth.org/subjects/]Subjects”>http://www.academicearth.org/subjects/)
Academic Earth. College-level lectures.</p>
<p>[Apple</a> - iTunes U - A wealth of knowledge from top institutions.](<a href=“http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/whats-on.html]Apple”>http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/whats-on.html)
iTunes University. Some video, some audio podcasts. Some K12 content. Order through iTunes store, but content is delivered free.</p>
<p>Look into MIT Opencourseware and Carnegie Mellon OLI (Open Learning Initiative). I’m a homeschooled high school senior, and i used OLI for French, and MIT Video Lectures for Chemistry 1 and (currently) Intro to Computers and Programming. Highly recommend!!</p>
<p>Can some of you tell me where you are in the college process? Are you in high school? What year are you in? What colleges are you/have you applied to and were they “homeschool friendly?” I’m still trying to sort things out for 2 of my sons. My oldest is graduating from high school this year. He’s still waiting to hear from 1 school. He has done very well and homeschooling was great for him. There are things though that he wishes we had done a little differently though to make his application more competitive for scholarships and the reach schools. Also, I’m curious as to what impact your oversight had on your educational process. Ours had advantages and many disadvantages. So I just want to take some time to reassess and figure out what if any changes I should make for son #2. Thanks!</p>