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Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

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Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#271

Post by tombert »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #250
tombert wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and I actually think that there can be some value in students being challenged to find some misinformation. I maintain that one of the very best teachers I ever had was my 9th grade biology teacher, purely because she understood absolutely nothing about biology and appeared to just be making shit up. You could argue that in a vacuum this might be benign, but part of the issue is that she would use tests provide…

A friend of mine who taught high school said he would tell his class each year that there would be one day when all he would spew would be made up baloney. But he wouldn't tell them which day that would be. It was up to them to discover it. A clever guy he was.

Yeah, I think priming people to look for bullshit is a good way to get them to pay attention.

While I do obviously hope that ChatGPT is able to curve against the misinformation problem, I actually do think there's been a lot of value for me personally in trying to figure out where it's getting things subtly wrong. Since I'm taking everything it says with huge grain of salt, the I am kind of forced to dissect every sentence a bit more thoroughly than I might with a textbook where I know everything is gonna be correct.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#272

Post by tombert »

cmcconomy wrote: post #141
tombert wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and I actually think that there can be some value in students being challenged to find some misinformation. I maintain that one of the very best teachers I ever had was my 9th grade biology teacher, purely because she understood absolutely nothing about biology and appeared to just be making shit up. You could argue that in a vacuum this might be benign, but part of the issue is that she would use tests provide…

finding misinformation is a critical skill, but you need a basis to suss out bullshit. diving into the LLM plausibility deepend is not the best way for most people to distinguish the two.

I mentioned in a sibling thread that I am absolutely not suggesting we throw away textbooks or anything like that. I think we should still have and verified work that can referenced as a source of truth, and I think those should be the primary source of learning.

What I think is valuable is trying to figure out stuff where ChatGPT contradicts the "established" stuff, and having students figure it out.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#273

Post by aleph_minus_one »

7thpower wrote: post #19

I am a high school dropout and who learned math using Khan Academy after never having completed more than pre-algebra in middle school. Sal Khan’s work changed my life and allowed me to build a foundation in not only math, but also finance and economics, that allowed me to feel confident enough to go to college. I did not have a support system or people in my life who could teach me these things, but I had the intern…

> Every time I go to the grocery store to buy something and don’t have to worry about my card being declined, it feels like magic. Even years later.

Pay cash: it's much more privacy-conscious - and you don't have to worry about your card being declined. :-)

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#274

Post by aleph_minus_one »

Pulcinella wrote: post #70

Background: I taught high school science for half a decade and now I am in tech. This will never take off. One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. What little money there is goes to the obvious stuff like student records databases. Anything that requires an ongoing subscription fee is dead in the water. The only reason those stupid smartboards took off is because…

> One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech.

There is no money in EdTech for pupils. Better go for continuing education for adults. There potentially is money.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#275

Post by 7thpower »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #265
7thpower wrote: post #19

I am a high school dropout and who learned math using Khan Academy after never having completed more than pre-algebra in middle school. Sal Khan’s work changed my life and allowed me to build a foundation in not only math, but also finance and economics, that allowed me to feel confident enough to go to college. I did not have a support system or people in my life who could teach me these things, but I had the intern…

Growing up, I had a strong aptitude for both math and literature. I loved writing and reading. Also loved doing math, especially algebra. But I grew up before YouTube or even broadband, and I had very limited access to quality math resources. Otoh, we had a pretty nicely stocked library at home and I could read all the literature I ever wanted to read. I ended up majoring in English. Although I now work in the tech f…

I do not think people understand or appreciate what a truly fundamental shift that access to zero marginal cost instruction has been (including YouTube, etc.). It is a tool that humanity still has not figured out how to take advantage of at scale, we’re in the early days and it will take time.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#276

Post by 7thpower »

jjice wrote: post #169
7thpower wrote: post #19

I am a high school dropout and who learned math using Khan Academy after never having completed more than pre-algebra in middle school. Sal Khan’s work changed my life and allowed me to build a foundation in not only math, but also finance and economics, that allowed me to feel confident enough to go to college. I did not have a support system or people in my life who could teach me these things, but I had the intern…

Khan Academy is a treasure of a service. Probably my favorite non-profit out there. High quality information with low barrier to entry. It got me through Calculus, Calc 2, and Linear Algebra.

I tell basically every parent I meet about it with the enthusiasm of Tom cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#277

Post by ukulele »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #274
Pulcinella wrote: post #70

Background: I taught high school science for half a decade and now I am in tech. This will never take off. One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. What little money there is goes to the obvious stuff like student records databases. Anything that requires an ongoing subscription fee is dead in the water. The only reason those stupid smartboards took off is because…

> One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in EdTech for pupils . Better go for continuing education for adults. There potentially is money.

They also have the Gates Foundation backing. If it is a shiny AI tech that could help lots of people, then the money is there

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#278

Post by skrbjc »

bufordtwain wrote: post #256
Pulcinella wrote: post #70

Background: I taught high school science for half a decade and now I am in tech. This will never take off. One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. What little money there is goes to the obvious stuff like student records databases. Anything that requires an ongoing subscription fee is dead in the water. The only reason those stupid smartboards took off is because…

This might be the exception that proves the rule but I used to work for an outfit that made a school website product (SaaS) and they seemed to be making plenty of money.

That's more of a service for the school as an institution. I believe the OP is saying that most ed-tech startups that have a goal of helping with the learning process have not been successful. The thing that comes to mind to me was all the hype around MOOCs and how much everyone thought they would be a game-changer for education, but the reality is that the problem wasn't the fact that people didn't have access to the education, it's that so few have the focus/discipline/resources to actually follow-through.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#279

Post by svnt »

gcanyon wrote: post #249
diddypiddy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a world where wealth is increasingly being concentrated at the top, social mobility for the average person is trending downwards, suicide rates in the US are at all-time highs, drug abuse rising, general deaths of despair rising, mental illness rising, climate and ecological catastrophes mounting by unchecked greed and all of this AI crap is mostly in the hands of the powerful who will use it to solidify t…

“Wealth” is becoming a tricky term. Bill Gates is approximately a million times richer than I am, but for many things he can’t get anything like a million times the value I can. He can spend 1000x what I do on clothes, but I won’t be appreciably colder or less comfortable than he is. His house might cost 100x what my apartment would go for, but again, it isn’t 100x nicer. He can eat steak and lobster for every meal,…

> He can spend 1000x what I do on clothes, but I won’t be appreciably colder or less comfortable than he is.

This misses the point of expensive clothing entirely.

Many people would disagree that his house is not 100 times nicer than yours.

He doesn’t use computers and phones like you do. He uses people who use technology that is 100kx your computer and phone.

You’re talking about the essential function of an object. When things become expensive they take on additional functions that your items lack entirely.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#280

Post by gnicholas »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #268
gnicholas wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> told me my answer (to a problem it had given me) was wrong, even though I was right. This is a fatal flaw. It absolutely cannot make mistakes like this if it's going to succeed because that will undermine the confidence that teachers and students have in the system.

Here's a screenshot of the conversation: https://imgur.com/a/MYOQRK3 Aside from the wrong answer, I also didn't like the fact that it just told me to multiply the numbers, instead of giving me a smaller hint that might allow me to realize this for myself.

Amazing that it made such a basic mistake, so many times. I thought they wrapped the AI in enough layers of meta-cognition that it wouldn't make mistakes like this. Maybe AI in education really is like FSD, as another commenter said (so close, yet so far).
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