Homework can be fun and a great learning experience if it is combined with the vast collection of interactive explanations of academic subjects available over a number of dedicated educational sites.

Unlike most of the web search results, these dedicated sites aim to engage students through videos, tutorials and interactive games in order to make them fully understand the concepts behind the topics of study. Though text-intensive sites are also good when it comes to reading full-length details, which are also available in course and reference books, the real advantage of homework or study-related sites is identification of student and grade levels and presentation of corresponding topics’ content without having to spend time searching for it.

To start with, one such site is KhanAcademy.org — a collection of over 3,000 videos specifically tailored for subjects and topics such as maths, biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics and computer science.

Within each category, there are multiple sub-topics available which take students through a complete path of learning starting from scratch and building up gradually towards more advanced topics. The videos are nicely directed with clear voice and colourful animated pen-strokes to make learning interesting. For example, clicking trigonometry results in a play list of topics starting from basics and going all the way up to proofs and laws.

The site is intelligent enough to suggest that if there is difficulty in understanding the videos, the play list of geometry can be viewed first. There is a lot of community support over the site as questions can be posted against videos and are often answered.

Answer quality can be ascertained through the number of votes they gather, along with a flagging option that allows reader to report duplicate answers, etc.

Along with discussions against videos, there is a separates community discussion page which is also organised topic-wise. The next interesting portion of the website is its ‘Practice’ area (available from top of the page) where one can spend hours and hours mastering list of available skills neatly divided in sub-skills where one can practise and then take a challenge — an interactive quiz which students can go through and check results with explanations.

All these results are displayed in an Exercise Dashboard and paths of learning required to acquire selected skill are shown as an animated Knowledge Path over a galaxy background.

Amongst all these items, there are brain teasers and interesting stuff such as why division by zero is undefined to keep students hooked-up to the site. No wonder that this site is being integrated in classrooms world over, and particularly because of a unique feature whereby teachers can enrol themselves as coaches over Khan Academy and registered students can associate themselves with them after which progress on various skills can be tracked online.

Registration is free and login can be performed through an existing Facebook or Google account as well.

Another useful site for those looking for homework help is FactMonster.com where topics like history, geography, social studies and linguistics are displayed in a graphical manner. For example, there’s a flag section that contains history, origins, quiz and even etiquettes of handling flags. There’s a daily section of analogy and spelling to keep students coming back regularly. And then there is a reference desk section containing an atlas, almanac, dictionary and encyclopaedia.

Another interesting website is United Nations Cyber Schoolbus, where there is wide ranging information such as an interactive country explorer that displays vital statistics of UN member states and an Info Desk section which offers further comparison-based insights against selected countries.

Students looking for resources specifically for mathematics can checkout Math.com — a site where basic concepts can be learned. There’s a practice section as well under Workout menu for each of the listed skill, where new questions can be generated as well. The sequence of learning starts from ‘at a glance’ and moves on to ‘in-depth’ section followed by ‘examples’ and backed up by a ‘workout’ section.

As more time is spent over the site, students get used to of this sequence and can enjoy the outcome in the form of better understanding of topics covered. Advanced topics such as statistics and calculus are also present over the site.

Internet is a great resource in today’s fast-paced life. And when it comes to homework or finding out more about what is taught at school, Internet can be used with greater effectiveness with each passing day using the above mentioned and other sites. Keep exploring and learning!