The coolest thing about it is that we have been capturing data from student teacher interaction for over three years. there are over 9000 answered questions in the archives, and it is growing everyday. It has become a very solid resource for highschool level math information.
This is the kind of thing that makes the internet exciting for me. Not just the sharing of information, but a dynamic, organic gathering of information that makes a resource become more and more useful everyday, and it is available to anyone who wants access to the information. I didn't really think about it in those terms when we started this project, but it has been interesting to watch it blossom.
It also has been a good example of how you can build effective applications using open source tools running stable and reliable operation systems and web/application servers for minimal cost. The total cost in hardware and software for Math Online was well under $2000.00 . Your really can't beat it. Its alway a hard pill to swallow when I watch companies spend tens of thousands (even hundreds) on hardware, software and operation systems just to run simple web services. It's like buying a SUV so you can drive to the corner store to buy milk.
