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Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

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Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#51

Post by buckler »

blakeweb wrote: post #29
enry_straker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT's Open CourseWare project or OCW can hardly be described as a simple collection of videos. Each and every course at MIT has put up all their educational documents including slides, exercises, tests, audio, video, schedules etc for free. Many courses also include video and other multimedia artefacts. The key differentiator is that these are aimed at under-grad and grad students and are simple conversion of what ha…

> Each and every course at MIT has put up all their educational documents including slides, exercises, tests, audio, video, schedules etc for free. Many courses also include video and other multimedia artefacts. Just to prevent readers from taking that statement literally, only a small minority of courses offer all these materials. (e.g., see [1]--you can see by the icons on the left which materials are available for…

Just as an additional note, MIT came up with a set of OCWs for introductory courses back in January that are specifically intended for independent learners (IIRC, one of the MIT's original aims for the OCW project was to provide materials for educators rather than learners). These 'OCW Scholar' courses contain complete course material, and I'm guessing we'll have more of these as time progresses.

Link: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ocw-scholar/

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#52

Post by solipsist »

palish wrote: post #47
solipsist wrote: post #5

I haven't exactly been as amazed by the Khan Academy as everyone else has. After watching a few videos, I decided that we need to focus more on the material that we are teaching - rather than the methods we go about doing it. They will obviously go hand by hand, but in my opinion the material that we are teaching is our biggest weakness and therefore needs the most reform. A video that everyone should take the time t…

K-12 isn't generally about learning . It is a daycare for children and young adults. (I am 23 now. I left school when I was 17 to pursue a career in the gamedev industry. Daycare was not the place for me, and I haven't regretted dropping out.)

I know. Talk about a waste of time. Turns out to be 70,000 hours that each person spends in K-12 school. Add any outside school work and that could be closer 90,000 hours.

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#53

Post by petercooper »

solipsist wrote: post #52
palish wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

K-12 isn't generally about learning . It is a daycare for children and young adults. (I am 23 now. I left school when I was 17 to pursue a career in the gamedev industry. Daycare was not the place for me, and I haven't regretted dropping out.)

I know. Talk about a waste of time. Turns out to be 70,000 hours that each person spends in K-12 school. Add any outside school work and that could be closer 90,000 hours.

I thought your number was quite mindblowing but then I worked out that 70000 hours is about 8 years if you were there constantly, 24/7.. 90000 waking hours is over 15 years.

I worked it out at around 15-18k hours (depending on where you live and variations in school day length).

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#55

Post by solipsist »

petercooper wrote: post #53
solipsist wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. Talk about a waste of time. Turns out to be 70,000 hours that each person spends in K-12 school. Add any outside school work and that could be closer 90,000 hours.

I thought your number was quite mindblowing but then I worked out that 70000 hours is about 8 years if you were there constantly, 24/7.. 90000 waking hours is over 15 years. I worked it out at around 15-18k hours (depending on where you live and variations in school day length).

You're right, I was off by quite a bit :) 15k hours seems more like it.

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#56

Post by lutorm »

solipsist wrote: post #5

I haven't exactly been as amazed by the Khan Academy as everyone else has. After watching a few videos, I decided that we need to focus more on the material that we are teaching - rather than the methods we go about doing it. They will obviously go hand by hand, but in my opinion the material that we are teaching is our biggest weakness and therefore needs the most reform. A video that everyone should take the time t…

Against popular belief, concepts can be understood without learning the nitty-gritty mechanics.

I disagree. The problem is that you don't know that you understand a concept until you actually can apply your conceptual understanding to accomplish something. The world is full of people who "understand" quantum mechanics or relativity in terms of half-baked analogies and are unable to apply those concepts to anything but pseudo-scientific discussions.

Real conceptual understanding comes form having worked with the subject area enough that you have built your own conceptual framework. You can't really just teach someone a conceptual framework, because the words you use to describe your framework will likely be interpreted in a completely different way by someone else.

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#57

Post by cicero »

solipsist wrote: post #5

I haven't exactly been as amazed by the Khan Academy as everyone else has. After watching a few videos, I decided that we need to focus more on the material that we are teaching - rather than the methods we go about doing it. They will obviously go hand by hand, but in my opinion the material that we are teaching is our biggest weakness and therefore needs the most reform. A video that everyone should take the time t…

In the book Why Don't Students Like School ( http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/04705...) Daniel Willingham argues that people need to have a good vocabulary of mechanics, basic concepts, and skills in order to be able to move on to higher order knowledge. Children should learn how to calculate not necessarily to do calculations instead of a computer, but to help their brains develop.

Besides, until kids hit puberty, their brains aren't ready for higher orders of thinking. What they are good at is memorization and mechanics. The more mechanics they learn and the more they memorize as little kids, the better equipped they will be for higher order thinking as teens and adults.

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#58

Post by palish »

petercooper wrote: post #53
solipsist wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. Talk about a waste of time. Turns out to be 70,000 hours that each person spends in K-12 school. Add any outside school work and that could be closer 90,000 hours.

I thought your number was quite mindblowing but then I worked out that 70000 hours is about 8 years if you were there constantly, 24/7.. 90000 waking hours is over 15 years. I worked it out at around 15-18k hours (depending on where you live and variations in school day length).

In a way, 70,000 hours is a lot closer to the true number.

(365 days) * (24 hours) * (12 years) = ~105k hours, or 70k waking hours

It isn't until fifth or sixth grade that you can really start finding a passion.

I'd say I managed to spend 5k to 10k hours on learning about technology and programming. I had to completely ignore high school. I literally slept through it. Teachers gave up trying to get me to try; I was also a social outcast.

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#59

Post by kevinchen »

cicero wrote: post #57
solipsist wrote: post #5

I haven't exactly been as amazed by the Khan Academy as everyone else has. After watching a few videos, I decided that we need to focus more on the material that we are teaching - rather than the methods we go about doing it. They will obviously go hand by hand, but in my opinion the material that we are teaching is our biggest weakness and therefore needs the most reform. A video that everyone should take the time t…

In the book Why Don't Students Like School ( http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/04705... ) Daniel Willingham argues that people need to have a good vocabulary of mechanics, basic concepts, and skills in order to be able to move on to higher order knowledge. Children should learn how to calculate not necessarily to do calculations instead of a computer, but to help their brains develop. Besides, un…

However, we are still teaching and emphasizing arithmetic and memorization in high school — even in the advanced classes. That's the problem, really.

Re: Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

#60

Post by felipe »

kamens wrote: post #48
aik wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on what the in-school pilot programs are? In what way are the encouraging? What types of schools are you piloting in? Public? I haven't yet seen much effective use of technology in the learning environment that touches anything but the periphery of the formal educational experience. I'd be excited to hear about something better going on!

Brief summary: Los Altos school district, 5th and 8th grade classes using KA as the primary tool for math curriculum, being compared to other 5th and 8th grade classes in the same school district (those not using KA). Lots of freedom given to teachers to experiment w/ various KA use. Sal, Shantanu, Jason, and I have been regularly visiting classes to watch students and teachers use KA. Feedback has been invaluable. M…

How about East Palo Alto?
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