I forget sometimes that the sites I read and the stories I follow are not entirely mainstream. Thus while there is a huge group of people that already know about The Khan Academy, there are even more people that don’t.
For those that don’t know about Khan, the best thing to do is to watch the video below – it’s a very good overview. I would strongly encourage you to do this is you are a student, parent and especially if you are a teacher. It’s revolutionary.
The video is of Salman Khan speaking at the most recent TED, and TED is a whole another realm of videos that are also worth exploring. Again – most readers of blogs know about TED.
For those that already know about Khan and have not yet watched the TED video, then it is really worth doing so. Salman Khan is now being seriously financially supported, and he has over 2400 videos, with more and more coming. He aims to have everything from 1+1=2 to and through university. It’s inspiring. The academy is responding to requests from schools with some very cool testing and tracking software tools, which are already online.
For everyone: If you are not already, then please tell all the students, parents and teachers you know all about this . I showed the video to a very smart 11 year old, a parent and a teacher today – and they both immediately saw the usefulness and implications.
While I have a small sense of regret that I didn’t have such tools when I was at school and university, I see great hope for the new generation being educated today and for the dramatic benefits this can have to the teaching industry and craft.
Some teachers may see this as a threat, but most will see that the videos allow them more freedom to focus on the right areas, and more 1-1 student time.
So here are the hundreds and hundreds of lessons and even better – sign up as a student of Coach (teacher, parent or, well, coach) and get moving on it all.
Lance Wiggs 