Honest & Unsponsored Reviews of Learning Apps and Websites
There is no single resource in this list that takes the place of a full year in the classroom, an exchange of ideas, discourse with subject matter experts, learning from peers, and human interaction. The courses below are comprised of free materials that you can access without having to login or free resources that you must login but do not share identifiable data according to their data pricavy policies.
Recommended Free Resources
Best for: K-12 learning, and providing support for AP and higher levels.
Khan Academy is a number one pick for free learning materials. They are a non-profit which provides free educational resources for students, and they do not sell your data to third parties to make that happen, but a login is required meaning you will have a data footprint. The learning materials cover nearly every course you can think of from Pre-K upwards (I remember watching their videos to understand circular polarization in university physics). The only downside to Khan is that sometimes the higher grade levels lack foundational coverage and depth of explanation. While that background knowledge most assuredly exists somewhere else on the site, it is not covered or linked into the course. You can expect students will be a little lost if using Khan when learning advanced materials for the first time.
Best for: Testbooks and reading materials for high school and university level courses.
OpenStax from Rice University is another great resource providing free peer-reviewed textbooks for many high school and university level courses in both English and Spanish. You will be prompted for a login, but you can skip this step. This is not a developed course in the same way that Khan provides quizzes and videos mixed media, but the information is trustworthy.
Recommended Subscription Based
Best for: AP Test Prep
While most topics are covered free on Youtube, the subscrption gets you access to a note taking guide, additional unit review videos, thematic timelines, practice MCQ and even full practice tests. The price is about $30 per AP Course, and options include US Government, US History, World History: Modern, and Human Geography. According the privacy policy, Heimler does not disclose any personally identifiable information to any other party, persons, company
Best for: AP Test Prep
This is another subscription based AP resource that is worth the money. URP is priced similarly to Heimler at $27 – $30 per AP Course and the majority of the topics are covered for free on Youtube. The subscription gets you note taking guides, test taking tips, study guides, practice quizzes, practice FRQ, and a full length practice test or two. These courses are available for AP Biology, Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Chemistry, Environmental Sciene, European History, Human Geography, Macroeconomics, PreCalculus, Psychology, Statistics, US Government, US History, World History: Modern. According to their privacy policy URP does not sell identifiable data for marketing or commercial purposes, and refrains from “does not disclosing any personally identifiable information to any other party, persons, company.”
Don’t Waste your time
Prager U is so bad that I will not even provide a link.
Best for: Literally Nothing. Don’t support this.
On this site, materials are passed off as educational in nature, but use a small number of facts coupled with vague generalizations to push alt-right propaganda in a way that leaves educators genuinely horrified. Students will fail assessments that require factual definitions and evidence to support claims. Even basic definitions of necessary course vocabulary is not provided. It is substituted instead for more convenient definitions that help to push a political narrative. It is spoken quickly and with such confidence, that some may mistake the nature of the material and follow the implied logic.
Don’t Waste your Money
Best for: simplified explanations when you need more support to understand the textbook.
This was once one of my favorite go-to study guides. But it now carries a “use at your own risk” warning due to recent ai adoption, and typical corporate data privacy agreements (they are FERPA compliant at least).
What they do right: The price is $99 for the year and unlocks every AP subject, SAT, ACT, honors courses, and first year university. There are some practice questions which include both multiple-choice and free-response. They cover a really wide range of topics and courses, providing very simple explanations of the content that may be useful for background knowledge.
What they have done wrong: They have adopted AI in cool but dangerous ways. They have rewritten their articles with AI leaving lower quality explanations overall, removed quicklinks for vocabulary and background knowledge, and implemented tools that are not quite ready for the task of university level science. In AP Biology I found errors in the provided images, and attempted to contact support, but they argued that I am incorrect and are displaying an aldehyde instead of a carboxyl group.
AlbertIo is not horrible, but I don’t recommend it. The prices range from $39 to $79 per subject per course. I purchased the AP Chemistry and AP United States History courses for $79 each. The price seems a little high for only 10 multiple-choice questions per topic. There are no learning materials or practice tests included. There are no free-response essays or practice at showing work and drawing diagrams. Not great AP prep materials.
For AP US History, the questions are very obviously written by AI. They have all the same errors I regularly found in reviewing automated output for other EdTech companies and generating my own. I will give them credit for using actual historical texts for the reference materials so they feel more authentic to the AP experience than the overly homogenous generated versions. Unfortunately, the questions are often incorrectly coded, historically inaccurate, overly generalized common sense type, answers are explicitly stated in the reference material, placed too early in the course according to the topic coverage, a little too specific for the CED, or completely unrelated to the provided text. Amusingly they also had the issue of generating content for the first topic in each unit which contextualizes the material to set up the learning. Questions are too indepth and will not be covered until later topics in the unit. I am still reviewing the AP Chemistry questions.
Duolingo
Best for: Foreign Language Vocabulary
Duolingo is probably the most entertaining app to get pushed to the bottom of the stack. It is another EdTech tool brought to you by tech bros that do not know much about teaching and learning. Duolingo’s relationship to languge learning is about the equivalent of what keeping a Tamagachi alive in the the 90s was to pet ownership. It is fun. It is flashy. It is cool to show your friends. And after reaching a 758 day streak, my daughter still still struggles with the grammar. Many users abadoned with similar complaints and over quality concerns regarding the AI generated content. Additionally, they claim they dont sell your data to third parties, but that they do collect and share it with third parties. According to404 Media, Duolingo’s data is tracked and used to locate individuals who might be… let’s say learning English as a second language inside the US.
PigTailz 