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Khan Academy

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The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit educational organization created and sustained by Salman Khan. With the stated mission "of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the Academy supplies a free online collection of more than 1,600 videos[1] on mathematics, science, and economics.[2]

History and summary

Salman Khan was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana.[3] His parents were immigrants from what is now India and Bangladesh. Khan holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a BS in mathematics, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and an MS in electrical engineering and computer science. He also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. In late 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin in mathematics using Yahoo!'s Doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought his tutorage, he decided it would be more practical to distribute the tutorials on YouTube.[4][5] Their popularity there and the testimonials of appreciative students prompted Khan to quit his job in finance in 2009 and focus on the Academy full-time.[5]

As of December 2009, Khan's YouTube-hosted tutorials receive a total of more than 35,000 views per day.[5] Each video runs for approximately ten minutes, and is produced using video capture on SmoothDraw. Khan eschewed a format that would involve a person standing by a whiteboard, desiring instead to present the content in a way "akin to sitting next to someone and working out a problem on a sheet of paper": "If you're watching a guy do a problem [while] thinking out loud, I think people find that more valuable and not as daunting".[6] Offline versions of the videos have been distributed by not-for-profit groups to rural areas in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.[4][7] While the Khan Academy's current content is mainly concerned with pre-college mathematics and physics, Khan states that his long-term goal is to provide "tens of thousands of videos in pretty much every subject" and to create "the world's first free, world-class virtual school".

The Khan Academy also provides a web-based exercise system that generates problems for students based on skill level and performance. Khan believes his academy points to an opportunity to overhaul the traditional classroom by using software to create tests, grade assignments, highlight the challenges of certain students, and encourage those doing well to help struggling classmates.[5]

Vision

Major components:[8]

  • Video library (already over 1600 videos and counting in various topic areas - logging over 17 million visits[citation needed])
  • Automated exercises with continuous assessment (already over 70 modules mainly in math)
  • Peer-to-peer tutoring based on objective data collected by the system (future projected)
  • Khan Academy videos are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.[9]

Partner not-for-profit organizations are making the content available outside of YouTube. The Lewis Center for Educational Research, which is affiliated with NASA, is bringing the content into community colleges and charter schools around the country. World Possible is creating offline snapshots of the content to distribute in rural, developing regions with limited or no access to the Internet.[3][10]

Criticism

Math teacher at The Castilleja School, Kimberly Knapp, has argued that while the content may be beneficial to students, especially shy students who do not ask questions, the videos are not a substitute for the classroom and cannot replicate classroom discussions.[11]

Recognition

References

  1. ^ Spencer Michels (February 22, 2010). "Khan Academy: How to Calculate the Unemployment Rate". www.pbs.org. Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
  2. ^ "Khanacademy official website". Retrieved 2009-12-23.
  3. ^ a b "Khan Academy". Khan Academy. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
  4. ^ a b "Frequently asked questions". Khanacademy.org. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Salman Khan, math master of the Internet". sfgate.com. 2009-12-14. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
  6. ^ "Need a tutor? YouTube videos await". USA Today. 2008-12-12. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
  7. ^ a b "2009 Education Award Laureate: Salman Khan". Techawards.org. Retrieved 2009-12-14.[verification needed]
  8. ^ "Khan Academy Vision and Social Return". Retrieved 2010-04-10.
  9. ^ "Khan Academy". Khan Academy. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
  10. ^ "Partners". Worldpossible.org. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
  11. ^ “” (2010-01-05). "PBS NewsHour piece on the Khan Academy and Salman Khan". YouTube. Retrieved 2010-07-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ "San Francisco Chronicle Article". Khan Academy. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
  13. ^ Author, Start (2010-02-22). "Khan Academy: How to Calculate the Unemployment Rate | The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour". PBS. Retrieved 2010-07-06. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  14. ^ "Khan Academy". Khan Academy. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
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