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John Resig joins the Khan Academy

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51–60 of 75 posts

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#51
post #48
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't plan for today, you plan for five years down the line. Tablet computers are likely to become as ubiquitous as desktops or laptops, it's purely a matter of time. Tablets are a much more useable form factor in classrooms, etc.

That line of reasoning makes sense. He specifically mentioned iPad - not tablets in general. When I think of the educational needs of tomorrow, I think of school districts like Los Angeles, where the drop out rate is ~33%. It's really hard for me to imagine a scenario where tablets are wide spread among students in the lower income areas of that district. Hopefully the iPad is just a kickoff point. One of my philosop…

"Hopefully the iPad is just a kickoff point."

That's precisely it. Being who I am, I'm going to be building everything with Open Web technologies and most likely built on top of jQuery Mobile. The iPad is just serving as a good initial platform to target and test on before expanding massively.

I wouldn't be surprised if much of the work that happens on the tablet version of the site gets back-ported to the main site itself (as things like tablets and mobile devices tend to encourage minimalist UIs and a larger emphasis on what the user is attempting to achieve).

I did work for the One Laptop Per Child project in the past, I'm a strong advocate for getting useful resources out to as many people as possible - regardless of their means.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#52
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't plan for today, you plan for five years down the line. Tablet computers are likely to become as ubiquitous as desktops or laptops, it's purely a matter of time. Tablets are a much more useable form factor in classrooms, etc.

I agree that tablets are going to be ubiquitous in the future, but it may not be iPads that get into the most hands. I'd like to see John put his incredible javascript knowledge to work on a great cross platform web application rather than a native iOS app.

As I replied a few minutes ago - it absolutely will be a cross platform application using web technologies. It remains to be seen how it'll be bundled (likely using PhoneGap, I suspect) so at that point most of the major platforms are feasible.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#53
post #46
post #43

I'm happy for John, and this is great news for the Khan Academy. But I have to admit my reaction was mixed about his initial plans to focus on the iPad. On one hand, this is tantamount to saying you want to ensure that rich kids have better access to educational materials. Relative to the rest of society, children of parents who can afford an iPad are probably the least needy re educational tools. On the other hand,…

You're assuming that it was his plan and his decision to focus on the iPad. Kahn will be his employer, so I imagine they have a hand in deciding what is important enough for him to work on. It doesn't seem likely that he just up and decided that he'd build them an iPad app and made the decision without needing any approval.

Roughly right. I told them that I really wanted to build a cross platform, mobile, version of their application (amongst other things, naturally). They mentioned that they were already looking to build an iPad application - that seems like a fine place to start development and testing.

It's going to be a challenge to figure out the right UI idioms for the project, less so getting it working on a bunch of platforms giving the technology stack (open web technologies). Right now that's my biggest concern. Once we figure out how the interactions should work then the table/mobile world is our oyster.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#54
post #51
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That line of reasoning makes sense. He specifically mentioned iPad - not tablets in general. When I think of the educational needs of tomorrow, I think of school districts like Los Angeles, where the drop out rate is ~33%. It's really hard for me to imagine a scenario where tablets are wide spread among students in the lower income areas of that district. Hopefully the iPad is just a kickoff point. One of my philosop…

"Hopefully the iPad is just a kickoff point." That's precisely it. Being who I am, I'm going to be building everything with Open Web technologies and most likely built on top of jQuery Mobile. The iPad is just serving as a good initial platform to target and test on before expanding massively. I wouldn't be surprised if much of the work that happens on the tablet version of the site gets back-ported to the main site…

John beat me to the punch here. We're thinking about a much more general mobile strategy. My personal mission is to try to design an experience for content, student interaction, and exercises that is usable on smaller screens because, although the tablet market is booming (thanks in great part to the growth of the iPad) the smartphone market is much bigger and growing more quickly. They are also likely to become commoditized more quickly (if you want to argue that they aren't there already). In any case, replace the word "iPad" in his post with "mobile" and I think you are closer to what John, I, and the rest of the team are talking about.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#55
post #41

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.

Awesome to hear! Can you give us any information on how their grades have developed? Of course, kindling fun and excitement for education and science is already a great, if not the most important, achievement. But I'm curious about the effect, that was discussed here before [1]. Derek Muller claims [2], that these videos give a false illusion of understanding. If I get him right: If your kids don't feel a bit confuse…

I don't know if I'm misinterpreting Derek Muller, but I didn't get the impression that people had to be confused/overwhelmed to learn. I think it's only necessary when there's incorrect prior knowledge.

If interested, here's my take/rant about it:

I believe that prior knowledge and misconceptions can change how people deal and interpret new information. This can help or it can hurt the learning process.

It can help because it often makes new knowledge more likely to "stick." For example, a soccer fan is more likely to remember soccer scores [1]. I know there's other research that indicate more prior knowledge leads to quicker learning, but I don't remember them off the top of my head.

It can hurt in much of the same ways Derek Muller describes. When hearing new information it can easily be misinterpreted to match current knowledge. For example, anecdotally, those only familiar with the words "negative" (bad) and "reinforcement" (adding/reaffirming) are more likely to misinterpret "negative reinforcement" to mean "punishing behavior by adding something bad" instead of "rewarding behavior by taking something bad away." I believe there were similar findings/studies within statistics. Another common one is F=mv as shown in Muller's videos. I'm sure there are plenty more examples.

I believe Derek Muller's problem with Khan's videos is that they might not challenge incorrect previous knowledge. I agree with Muller and personally feel that Khan Academy will likely encounter some of these same problems when students watch the videos.

But, I also believe that the other half of Khan Academy (exercises) provide feedback that videos alone otherwise do not have. I believe that the requirement for mastery through the exercises can and will challenge at least some of these misconceptions. Particularly if the questions are good questions.

I also believe that Khan Academy is going to find themselves in a position where they can potentially have a lot of interesting data. I'd love to be able to see whether they can use this data to find some of these common misconceptions and then improve videos and/or questions. In the very least, I believe that their exercises will serve as a good metric to see where misconceptions are being poorly addressed.

We also have to keep in mind that, at least in the pilot in Los Altos school district, these videos are not the only source where students are learning. They still have time with teachers where these misconceptions can be addressed. In addition to that, they'll have the opportunity to review the videos to contrast, reflect on what lead to the misunderstanding, and hopefully reaffirm the new knowledge.

tldr - I believe Khan Academy's exercises and class/teacher time might help deal with the issue of misconceptions.

[1] Morris, 1981 - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1981....

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#56

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?

With my nine year old I said he needed to pass off one level before he could play his regular video games. He just took it from there. There is a concept of points for doing certain things. I didn't think much of it but he keeps track and somehow he cares (something like karma here I suppose).

My 14 year old had a very different reaction. She just uses it to fill over gaps in what she is doing at school. I have a degree in math but no matter how gentle I try to be I think she feels embarrased to come to me for help. Maybe I get too excited and try to explain too much. Either way she is keeping up much better now.

My six year old watches for a few minutes and then breaks into song and dance. I'll just let him be for a while.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#57
post #41

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.

Awesome to hear! Can you give us any information on how their grades have developed? Of course, kindling fun and excitement for education and science is already a great, if not the most important, achievement. But I'm curious about the effect, that was discussed here before [1]. Derek Muller claims [2], that these videos give a false illusion of understanding. If I get him right: If your kids don't feel a bit confuse…

The videos are just one part of the academy. There is a tree you progress through by passing off problems. Ten correct in a row marks you as proficient and you go to the next level. Every so often there is a review section with random problems from any earlier level. The entire system of instruction, practice, and review gives more than an illusion of understanding.

My nine year old's grades have always been really good. The fun for him is just being able to go as fast as he wants. My 14 year old has moved from struggling for c's to breezing along with b's. She just really doesn't care about math but at least she doesn't hate it anymore.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#58
I discovered Khan Academy about 1 year ago and since then the website has not changed that much, except for some polishing on the site. Here is a snapshot of the site in June 2010 http://replay.web.archive.org/20100601053141/http://www.khan...

The site is currently quite hard to navigate around or search. Now that even talents like John have started to join the academy, I'm pretty sure, the site will definitely provide a better experience. Good for Khan, the academy and the education system

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#59
post #43

I'm happy for John, and this is great news for the Khan Academy. But I have to admit my reaction was mixed about his initial plans to focus on the iPad. On one hand, this is tantamount to saying you want to ensure that rich kids have better access to educational materials. Relative to the rest of society, children of parents who can afford an iPad are probably the least needy re educational tools. On the other hand,…

Why when I was a kid, rich kids got Apple IIc's and us poor kids got a Commodore 64 and 1540 drive for around $300.

Anyway, $499, which isn't that much, is today's price. iPads will drop in price and you'll get them used. At some point along will come great Android tablets for $299 (and probably iPads). Gotta start somewhere. Tablets are the next big thing. Soon they'll be a billion of them.

Re: John Resig joins the Khan Academy

#60
post #59
post #43

I'm happy for John, and this is great news for the Khan Academy. But I have to admit my reaction was mixed about his initial plans to focus on the iPad. On one hand, this is tantamount to saying you want to ensure that rich kids have better access to educational materials. Relative to the rest of society, children of parents who can afford an iPad are probably the least needy re educational tools. On the other hand,…

Why when I was a kid, rich kids got Apple IIc's and us poor kids got a Commodore 64 and 1540 drive for around $300. Anyway, $499, which isn't that much, is today's price. iPads will drop in price and you'll get them used. At some point along will come great Android tablets for $299 (and probably iPads). Gotta start somewhere. Tablets are the next big thing. Soon they'll be a billion of them.

$499 is a lot in a developing country.. I'm not against this approach, I'm just adding a different perspective.
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