Khan Academy

[chogall]

cool idea, but not going to work for everyone...

 

[revan]

I'm using it with my 14 year old son - who's struggling with junior high Algebra - the videos are great, but the exercises are key - they have a virtual workspace that lets you work through the problem right on the screen. Also, its helped him build up his math foundation that was real shaky to begin with.

 

[deadly7]



Very cool. I think it's a great idea, especially the idea of watching vids at night and doing homework in the classroom.

+1. This is why it will make the difference in schools that adopt virtual learning. Doing homework at home, when you are already confused, invariably leads to bad habits. Most parents can't help with anything beyond simple algebra, so something like this can make all the difference. Instead of getting frustrated with it, going, "Ugh! Math (science, english, history, whatever) is stupid!! I hate it!" a student can now actually get help immediately.

 

[JayJay]

^^^My first reaction after seeing one of his videos was that it would be a great help to parents.

 

[deadly7]



^^^My first reaction after seeing one of his videos was that it would be a great help to parents.

Maybe for middle-class and above parents, but I was more thinking of the lower end. Students whose parents may not have even finished high school, aren't that educated, etc. If those kids were provided with some easy way to watch lectures and then had the help they need during problem sets at school, it could help offset some academic challenges they may otherwise face. With that said, I don't know what the introductory material at Khan Academy looks like, and maybe he does actually explain things at a level that a high school dropout/graduate could also understand.

 

[A Y]

One of the things Sal points out that's great about the videos is the endless repetition possible. With a human teacher, the student might be embarrassed to ask the teacher to repeat something for the 9th time, or a human teacher might get impatient and give up. With videos, you can replay the problematic parts as many times as you need to get the lesson. He says that this is one of the things that people actually write about to him.

Another great feature of KA is that it is a pretty complete curriculum, at least as far as basic science and math goes. For example, they have a knowledge map that shows you the path from basic arithmetic all the way to calculus (and post-calc) with video modules for every step of the way. This is great because a student can see exactly what lies ahead, and seemingly difficult and mysterious subjects, like calculus to many students, are made all the more achievable and approachable. It's sort of like the technology tree in Civilization if you've ever played that game.

 

[willpower]

Brilliant idea reversing homework and classwork. BTW, Anyone got a TED lecture that doesn't start with applause?

 

[Tck13]

I want to know how that guy knows so much...

 

[GQgeek]

^^ He doesn't.

He started with areas he was already strong in like math and finance, and to a lesser extent, physics.
Now that he's doing videos full-time, he reads to learn, thinks about how to present it, and then makes his videos. He's not just dumping stuff that's already in his head.

 

[forex]

Really cool stuff, I've heard about KA but never really paid attention. My only issue is that the videos are pretty basic, I just started watching today and I watched a few finance videos so I am not sure about other sections, but my first impression was that they are almost like finance for dummies.

 

[otc]

I'd gone through a couple of videos in the past and they were really good. I think I was using some accounting/corp finance ones to brush up on some stuff during my downtime at work.

I think this sort of thing has a good potential. Right now I am taking one of the 3 experimental classes from stanford (I'm taking the database one) which I think have pulled a lot form the khan's ideas.
Its got high quality lectures that consist of screen caps of software being used as well as drawings on a tablet in different colors...I can rewind a minute if I find myself zoning out or getting distracted and I can watch them all in 1.2X or 1.5X speed (1.5 is too fast for everything but already familiar concepts, but I can do 1.2X normal talking speed for all but the most confusing segments).

Many of the quizzes/exercises are generated from base problems so you can repeat the same assignment again with different answers...it gives much more practice and sometimes the subtle difference between 2 questions that are based off the same root question can actually be key to understanding a concept.

So it seems people taking his ideas into account...