John Resig joins the Khan Academy • Hacker News Board

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#31

Post by Mafana0 » Tue, May 03, 2011, 7:42 PM UTC

spudlyo wrote: post #29

Symmetry wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how exciting Khan Academy is, Mozilla could still be pretty darn awesome and not stack up.

Agreed. Mozilla may have helped change the browser landscape, but the Khan Academy could change the face of education in this country. Both worthy places to pour one's energy but I'd give the edge in excitement to KA.

>but the Khan Academy could change the face of education in this country.

It's not just one country. I sincerely can't express my gratitude enough for Khan Academy guys, their very rich educational materials have and are helping me tremendously in my education and my career. I'm from a developing country.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#32

Post by sid0 » Tue, May 03, 2011, 7:42 PM UTC

spudlyo wrote: post #29

Symmetry wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how exciting Khan Academy is, Mozilla could still be pretty darn awesome and not stack up.

Agreed. Mozilla may have helped change the browser landscape, but the Khan Academy could change the face of education in this country. Both worthy places to pour one's energy but I'd give the edge in excitement to KA.

Not just in the US, but in the whole world. Particularly in maths and science.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#33

Post by evilduck » Tue, May 03, 2011, 8:03 PM UTC

jasonrr wrote: post #27

evilduck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know their relationship, but in Salman Khan's TED Talk[1], Gates performs some closing remarks with him. In the talk, he mentions that they're doing a pilot program with the Los Altos school district[2] as well, which I'm sure wasn't for free since it involved custom development. [1] http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rein... [2] http://lasdandkhanacademy.edublogs.org/about/

Actually, it was totally free in terms of the school not having to lay out any cash. The reason we chose to work with them, however, is that they committed a ton of time from teachers, students, administrators, and parents to help us make the Khan Academy work better for the classroom use case. The experience working with them has been fantastic. The teachers are fearless in the face of the significant uncertainty th…

That's awesome. Kudos to you and everything Khan Academy is doing.

Is it mostly grant money that funds everything then?

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#34

Post by zackattack » Tue, May 03, 2011, 8:22 PM UTC

When are we gonna see more advanced math covered on KA? It would be great to see Fourier transform or even music theory!

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#35

Post by kamens » Tue, May 03, 2011, 8:26 PM UTC

rudasn wrote: post #30

If I'm not mistaken Khan Academy is still hiring: http://www.khanacademy.org/jobs/dev and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2412000 I'm sure there are many great minds in here who would love to join John and the rest of the KA team

You're definitely not mistaken. Use either link -- applications welcome.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#36

Post by jasonrr » Tue, May 03, 2011, 8:34 PM UTC

evilduck wrote: post #33

jasonrr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it was totally free in terms of the school not having to lay out any cash. The reason we chose to work with them, however, is that they committed a ton of time from teachers, students, administrators, and parents to help us make the Khan Academy work better for the classroom use case. The experience working with them has been fantastic. The teachers are fearless in the face of the significant uncertainty th…

That's awesome. Kudos to you and everything Khan Academy is doing. Is it mostly grant money that funds everything then?

Sorry for not addressing that first time-round. We are funded by the Google and Gates Foundation grants plus private donations. As far as "most", I am not totally sure. I have very gladly stopped worrying about the particulars there as we've got some great folks (Sal, Shantanu, and Jessica) focused on making sure we're funded well enough to keep making progress at the rate we want. That frees up me and the rest of the developers to focus on building the product. Charmed life, eh?

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#37

Post by rayvega » Tue, May 03, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

zackattack wrote: post #34

When are we gonna see more advanced math covered on KA? It would be great to see Fourier transform or even music theory!

Discrete mathematics is definitely what I've been waiting for.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#38

Post by niels_olson » Tue, May 03, 2011, 8:51 PM UTC

te_platt wrote: post #14

tworats wrote: post #4

It is awesome that Khan Academy has attracted so much top talent. Has the potential to make a real difference in world education and thus in human potential. Goes to show how much effect a relatively small investment can make when joined with amazing, driven, talented people.

I agree except for "Has the potential". It is making an improvement right now. It is hard to describe how it feels to watch my 9 year old pop off months worth of school tedium in one morning, moving up through long division into simple algebra equations. Or my 14 fill in gaps that had been confusing her for years. Comments like "oh, I get it now" or "that's not hard at all" are common.

how do you get them in front of it? I am reluctant to "make" my 9 yo or 6 yo do it, but it competes with flash games and whatever else they find online.

In a related question, do you use OpenDNS or any other access controls?

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#39

Post by zem » Tue, May 03, 2011, 9:16 PM UTC

niels_olson wrote: post #38

te_platt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree except for "Has the potential". It is making an improvement right now. It is hard to describe how it feels to watch my 9 year old pop off months worth of school tedium in one morning, moving up through long division into simple algebra equations. Or my 14 fill in gaps that had been confusing her for years. Comments like "oh, I get it now" or "that's not hard at all" are common.

how do you get them in front of it? I am reluctant to "make" my 9 yo or 6 yo do it, but it competes with flash games and whatever else they find online. In a related question, do you use OpenDNS or any other access controls?

present it as an alternative to her textbooks, during designated study time.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#40

Post by abbasmehdi » Tue, May 03, 2011, 9:34 PM UTC

AdamTReineke wrote: post #8

abbasmehdi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get tons of grant money, use that for salaries.

I couldn't find a number for how much he got from the Gates Foundation, but he got $2m from Google for their 10^100 contest.

He's indicated before somewhere that he is good with $1mm/year for operating costs (I think he said something along the lines of "If KA has $1mm/yr in revenue we’re good!", think it was in the Globe and Mail).

His lectures are hosted on YouTube (free) and he could crowd-source dev, design and QA. Also I think he is always going to be the only teacher - he seems to believe (not passing judgment here, just making an observation from what I 'sensed') that he's got a captivating charisma that people respond to, hence he’s best suited for conducting the lectures. I have enjoyed every lecture of his and think he has a point; he really is a good teacher.

Also, from his TED talk I got that his vision is a universal classroom - very noble. He might need translation, but again, that can be crowd-sourced too.