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Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

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Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#91

Post by dalbasal »

gsatic wrote: post #75
dalbasal wrote: post #39

Online learning resources are amazing. Compared to pre-internet, the depth, quality and accessibility is amazing. It really does open an opportunity route for a lot of people. However... Institutional learning, whether it's K-12, colleges, techs or whatnot have barely changed. The same fundamental dynamics exist, whether it's tertiary sorting and prestige or primary teaching methods. Education still serves and fails…

Online resources are not very different than having access to good libraries. Great libraries have existed for thousands of years but you won't find examples, anywhere in the world, where kids are just left at the library to learn. One of the fundamental aspects of learning is practice. Teachers/coaches/guides and mentors play a big role in keeping kids on track. It's not just about the best quality content. Or getti…

They're not fundamentally different, but I don't think fundamentals matter here.

The mobile internet of 2022 is not very different, in principle, to the 2000 internet. But it is much more available and accessible to many more people. That means it has very different consequences.

So yes, as good Will Hunting said, you could get an ivy league education at a library. Some kids (and adults) did. Online resources make that pool of people much bigger.

I agree though that access to an online school is not a substitute for school. Most kids still need structure, coaching, support and peers. That said, it's still really important to have libraries, and that's what Khan is doing here. This is commendable.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#92

Post by bonoboTP »

dragonwriter wrote: post #36
vincentmarle wrote: post #2

The concept of an online high school may sound terrible, but sooner or later it’s bound to happen: quality education will keep consolidating until there’s one super school left. Outlier is doing the same thing but on the college level: why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by the best?

> why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by the best? Because…you actually can’t. Static media (like books and non-interactive lectures) scales easily, but that’s not teaching (even if, especially in large lower-division courses, that’s what university faculty essentially does.) Human interactivity, which is what teaching fundamentally is, doesn’t scale, which is why those large lecture cla…

That's what we need. The best resources online from truly great teachers, then a discussion session locally with a local teacher. Just look below any comment section of a great science lecture or course on youtube. Tons of people grateful that finally someone explained it in an understandable and non-dry way, including the "why" questions, the context, the intuition etc. instead of how they were taught by their own teacher.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#93

Post by dalbasal »

unixhero wrote: post #79
dalbasal wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, but I was somewhat disappointed by the website. They call it a "lab school." I was hoping that meant developing a model which other schools can follow. No shade to Sal, obviously. He does plenty, and does it well.

Better than no website!

I meant disappointed by the content of the website.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#94

Post by abrax3141 »

grapeskin wrote: post #82
abrax3141 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s like 500 way better online resources for any given KA topic. Take any KA video and compare it with the same topic from Numberphile, VSauce, or even just a random person who knows how to teach.

You’re comparing short entertainment videos vs something meant to break down subjects and teach them bit by bit. Nobody is using Vsauce to help them study a college course. The videos simply don’t exist , and I say this as someone who’s watched the channels you mentioned.

And Ps. I say this as a teacher, a cognitive scientist, a computer scientist, an education researcher, and most importantly a parent whose kid’s teachers have (thankfully rarely) forced his kids through the KA video tunnel of drone, which I’ve had to subsequently un/re-teach nearly every single time. (BTW, KA “lectures” are quite often, IMHO as a teacher, simply wrong in approach. It’s like they took a standard textbook and made a video out of every paragraph. What a nightmare. Even a book would be better - at least you could flip back and forth.)

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#95

Post by JackMorgan »

abrax3141 wrote: post #69

The Kahn Academy is boring online trash dressed up with famous media hype, and this sounds like more of the same. They seem to have anti-learned the lesson from the year* of pandemic online school: So, that was terrible, let’s do more if it and make it sound like a 6 hour straight zoom meeting isn’t everyone’s worst nightmare.

Except those videos don't have the adaptive learning, practice exercises, and tests that KA has. Maybe the videos are higher quality, but introducing the material is only part of education, you also need, planning, assessment, and practice, which is where KA is unparalleled.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#96

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

visarga wrote: post #83
gsatic wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online resources are not very different than having access to good libraries. Great libraries have existed for thousands of years but you won't find examples, anywhere in the world, where kids are just left at the library to learn. One of the fundamental aspects of learning is practice. Teachers/coaches/guides and mentors play a big role in keeping kids on track. It's not just about the best quality content. Or getti…

> It's about keeping ppl on track when the repetition and practice gets boring. That's the missing ingredient for online learning. I think being part of a class, having friends there, and not wanting to be left behind plays a huge role.

Maybe. But I feel like I wasted so much time when I was at school, playing around with others, not motivated to learn (but I did), sometimes feeling behind on some topics while feeling bored/ahead on others. We were all envious of having rather A than F, or stressed when we underperformed, but being "cool" was not about having the best grade. And being cool was part of the "culture" - totally pointless in retrospective. I don't know if online schooling might have been better but clearly when thinking about it, on site schooling has been filled with a lot of inefficiencies that maybe online schooling is doing better. I guess at least that parents have to be behind in order to "coach".

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#98

Post by watwut »

barry-cotter wrote: post #14
Arnavion wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may accept students from around the world, but whether it counts as a high school for the purpose of continuing on to higher education is country-specific, which (I assume) is why 2Gkashmiri asked what they did. Also, based on the About Us page, the requirements for submitting an application are quite US-centric ("Student must be proficient in Algebra 1", etc). I did not try to fill out an actual application to…

> Tuition for all students does include the opportunity to take two university courses per semester and earn college credit. Even the most irritatingly bureaucracy obsessed box ticking country, i.e. Germany, would accept a transcript with two college courses per semester as a university preparatory high school.

> Even the most irritatingly bureaucracy obsessed box ticking country, i.e. Germany, would accept a transcript with two college courses per semester as a university preparatory high school.

It would not necessary. They want recognized diploma and may recognize diploma from this school (and likely there is a process you can follow). But, transcript from two college courses per semester is the thing that will make it on itself.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#99

Post by jake_morrison »

ketzu wrote: post #56
jake_morrison wrote: post #32

Imagine a physics class with the budget of a Mythbusters episode. The result is pedagogically sound content, the best presenters, and a budget for graphics and special effects. With enough students, the cost per class is very low, less than what we pay for school now. Students will still need access to people to help when they have questions. And there is a need for some proctoring of exams/certifications. I expect t…

> the cost per class is very low, less than what we pay for school now. Personally, I think adding back the assistants for questions and proctoring will significantly reduce the cost savings (if not nullifying them completely) depending on how you implement them. > Then they will partner with local universities and community colleges > This will wipe out a lot of lower-tier schools. Aren't the lower-tier schools exac…

The majority of the costs associated with universities is for facilities, administration, and housing, not related to teaching.

If students attend classes online while living at home, then the costs go down dramatically. You are left with paying on an hourly basis for a tutor. When my daughter took the AP tests in Oklahoma, some of them were done in nearby churches. They can deliver test proctoring for cheap.

You can already get a respected online master's degree in computer science from Georgia Tech for around $10k. And you can do it at night, while working, eliminating opportunity costs.

This is incredibly cost-competitive with traditional schools. The elite schools will be fine, as they are essentially offering a private club for rich kids.

Other schools will not be sustainable. These dead universities will be great for remote workers, combining office space and housing in a nice walkable campus environment.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#100

Post by abrax3141 »

JackMorgan wrote: post #95
abrax3141 wrote: post #69

The Kahn Academy is boring online trash dressed up with famous media hype, and this sounds like more of the same. They seem to have anti-learned the lesson from the year* of pandemic online school: So, that was terrible, let’s do more if it and make it sound like a 6 hour straight zoom meeting isn’t everyone’s worst nightmare.

Except those videos don't have the adaptive learning, practice exercises, and tests that KA has. Maybe the videos are higher quality, but introducing the material is only part of education, you also need, planning, assessment, and practice, which is where KA is unparalleled.

The KA assessment platform (at lest in Algebra and Geometry) is pretty a boring mainstream online problem delivery engine. What’s unparalleled about that?
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