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Khan Academy: Computer Science

khanacademy.org

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Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#71

Post by kenjackson »

teach wrote: post #69

High school CS teacher here. I really hate taking shots at Khan Academy, because I love what they do and his other videos have really helped a lot of my students in chemistry, economics, etc. However, he's moving through the material MUCH more quickly than I've ever been able to do as a teacher. And I get nearly 5 hours a week of face time with my students. For example, his third lecture is on for loops. My students,…

My students, on the other hand, complete literally 80 assignments before beginning for loops.

80 assignments? What are these assignments? Are you teaching them how to use recursion before looping in Java? I get that Java has some ceremony, but not 70 assignments worth.

The first day I learned to program (with BASIC) I learned looping. I didn't know the details of it (like there was an index variable I could access), but it was as easy as anything else.

Seriously, what are they learning before looping?

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#72

Post by clistctrl »

teach wrote: post #69

High school CS teacher here. I really hate taking shots at Khan Academy, because I love what they do and his other videos have really helped a lot of my students in chemistry, economics, etc. However, he's moving through the material MUCH more quickly than I've ever been able to do as a teacher. And I get nearly 5 hours a week of face time with my students. For example, his third lecture is on for loops. My students,…

What's awesome though is a student can move at their own pace. If they're not ready for a for loop, then they can stay where they are, and continue practicing.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#73

Post by pjscott »

thinkbohemian wrote: post #57

Does anyone know how you can become a video contributor to khan? I have several years of teaching experience, two of them with online learning models and have worked with the University of Texas. I've attempted to contact them and offer my free services, but haven't heard anything back. Not even a 'no thank you'.

They're not really set up for taking external contributions, but there's nothing stopping you from making videos and putting them on YouTube. If you pick a subject and do it better than anyone else, you will have made a valuable contribution.

I know that's not as cool as contributing to Khan Academy, and makes it harder to get an audience, but it's something you can do at any time, without asking permission from anyone.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#74

Post by clistctrl »

mostly_harmless wrote: post #70
thinkbohemian wrote: post #57

Does anyone know how you can become a video contributor to khan? I have several years of teaching experience, two of them with online learning models and have worked with the University of Texas. I've attempted to contact them and offer my free services, but haven't heard anything back. Not even a 'no thank you'.

hate to disappoint you, but they wont host your videos no matter how great of a teacher you are. If you have looked at a bunch of their videos, you might have noticed that they are all done by one guy! Hence the name Khan Academy. The whole site is from the crazed brain of this one guy. You can see him talk in person in this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rein...

Sal is amazing. He is a great teacher, and his wealth of knowledge is vast. Unfortunately even sal, with his genius, is going to start running up against some curbs. I think it would be great if he brought on just a few more world class teachers to continue his model.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#75

Post by pjscott »

zerostar07 wrote: post #49
frewsxcv wrote: post #45

For the record, Khan Academy is going to eventually scrap all the Python videos. John Resig, creator of jQuery, is going to redo all the videos narrated by him and with the code written in JavaScript.

JS doesn't sound like a wise choice to me.

It has a very low barrier to entry, and it's not a bad first language. Also, while this has nothing to do with JavaScript per se, I'm reluctant to bet against John Resig.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#76

Post by 2arrs2ells »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #42
manish_gill wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but I still advocate the use of C++ over Python. Just because of the fact that I can now appreciate what goes on under the hood instead of groaning that why should I learn it when the "language takes care of it". Many classmates of mine really enjoy Java because of they had learned C++ first. It's a harder learning curve, but I think it's worth it.

If you have to, pick C. Never ever touch C++, especially its standard IO library. Classes are of very little interest anyway (C easily emulates modules), they can learn it later. There is a crucial point that should not be ignored. The first two languages someone learns should be easy . Monstrosities like C++ give the poor beginner the impression that learning any language is hard to learn, and that would discourage…

I agree with you 100%, if you're learning to program on your own.

I disagree 100%, if you're talking about a college curriculum. The intro class at my university [1] used C, and I'm incredibly grateful. If I hadn't been forced to grok pointers and malloc, I'm not sure I ever would have (I haven't done any C programming since then). But even though I'm not writing C directly, knowing how things work at a lower level has helped me understand all sorts of concepts in higher-level languages.

[1] http://cs50.tv

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#77

Post by Tichy »

teach wrote: post #69

High school CS teacher here. I really hate taking shots at Khan Academy, because I love what they do and his other videos have really helped a lot of my students in chemistry, economics, etc. However, he's moving through the material MUCH more quickly than I've ever been able to do as a teacher. And I get nearly 5 hours a week of face time with my students. For example, his third lecture is on for loops. My students,…

I guess that I taught myself programming from a book makes me a kind of super genius? Or maybe frontal teaching simply is not the right way to teach programming?

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#78

Post by pjscott »

llimllib wrote: post #63
jcampbell1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kahn makes a big mistake in pronouncing the assignment operator as "equals" in the first video. The assignment operator should be pronounced as "gets".

When I read it in my head, I read it as "let". As in "x = 5" -> "let x be 5".

In my head, I reserve the word "let" for immutable bindings. Or at least local bindings that people probably aren't going to mutate. I read it as "x equals five".

So, between three of us, we saw that simple line of code in three different ways. I wonder what other people see in more complicated code.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#79

Post by 2arrs2ells »

sjwright wrote: post #66
bialecki wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered this too. I wonder whether "doing" with some hints like Code Academy or watching videos and then doing is more helpful for programming and then how that applies to other disciplines like writing, math, etc. Seems like eventually we'll find a way to converge where I can do both side by side.

No matter how you slice the education process, you're always going to have instruction and practice. It seems Khan Academy has a great model for instruction and Code Academy has a great model for practice; it seems reasonable to posit that a combination of the two would be superior to either one on their own. I would further posit that the blend between the two models of instruction and practice would be something th…

Code School (i.e. Rails for Zombies) is a combination of the two! It's not quite what you're hoping for, though (it's always Instruction then Practice, rather than giving you the option to mix it up).

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#80

Post by TreesCanCode »

teach wrote: post #69

High school CS teacher here. I really hate taking shots at Khan Academy, because I love what they do and his other videos have really helped a lot of my students in chemistry, economics, etc. However, he's moving through the material MUCH more quickly than I've ever been able to do as a teacher. And I get nearly 5 hours a week of face time with my students. For example, his third lecture is on for loops. My students,…

I think there is a world of difference in the "average total beginner" high school students taking a class to meet a district mandate, and the "average total beginner" self-motivated learners actually interested in computer science.
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