While attending the NSBA Annual Conference this past
weekend, I had the opportunity to attend Sal Kahn’s keynote on Sunday. Khan is the creator of Khan Academy. He began his keynote by sharing a video montage of Khan
Academy highlights and then presenting some impressive statistics on
usage. To date, these statistics are:
140 million+ lessons delivered, 500 million+ exercises done, and 6+ million
unique visits per month. It is obvious from these statistics that many
stakeholders, including students, are finding some form of value from the
service that Khan Academy provides.
The catalyst for Khan Academy began some years ago
with a Yahoo doodle Sal developed to help a family member with her struggles in
math. In addition to using Yahoo doodle, he began writing quiz software in
2006. Dismissive at first, he then began
to create video tutorials that were uploaded to YouTube. As Sal emphasized, his key finding during
this exploratory process was that viewers could engage in the content when they
were ready for, or needed, it and could learn at their own pace. Once on
YouTube, the videos took on a life of their own and were widely watched and
used by teachers, parents, and students.
He officially started Khan Academy in 2009 knowing
that quality videos would withstand test of time. As the site increased in popularity it caught
the eye of Bill Gates and Google with an end result being over 4 million in
funding. The Khan Academy site now
contains over 3000 videos mapped to the Common Core and associated assessments
that allow learners to practice and reinforce skills acquired through the
videos. Detailed statistics are provided to learners and coaches (i.e.
teachers) to provide a snapshot of what has been learned. You can learn more details about other
associated features here.
As students show mastery in one concept they move on
to the next. Sal Khan says his system is out of sync with that of traditional
education systems that have become indoctrinated over many years. He feels that his service increases valuable
time for teachers to connect with students in class. As he stated, student teacher ratio isn't
important - it is the student to valuable teacher time ratio that matters. Khan Academy’s new features provide powerful
data on growth and achievement that teachers can utilize to modify instruction.
I must say Sal Kahn is a riveting storyteller. He had the audience laughing, cheering, and
literally in awe with Khan Academy and it’s potential in schools. All one had to do was read the Twitter stream
to deduce this. However, the Twitter
back channel also revealed many skeptics in regards to the finances provided by
certain champions for education reform,
Some tweets:
@mcpssuper: Why do I feel like I'm watching a really
cool sales pitch for #khanacademy
@cascadingwaters: All of this #khanacademy bit works,
right up until the kid gets stuck. And they do.
@MCSDrSpence: Implications of Khans work for closing
achievement gap are enormous. Next challenge: we have to bridge the digital
divide for kids
@irasocal: There are few bigger frauds in American
than Sal Khan #NSBAconf
Khan Academy is not a silver bullet that will fix
education and improve achievement as a stand-alone entity. It has its merits, as does the flipped learning approach that his videos are generally associate with, but more as an instructional supplement to enhance the teaching and learning
process. The video resources and
associated services provided for free by Khan Academy are powerful learning
tools, if they can be accessed by populations (rural and urban) that need them
the most. Khan Academy merely provides
the content. Great teachers are the key
to developing authentic tasks for students to apply what they have learned and
assessing to provide feedback. As a tool
Khan Academy will benefit educators, students, and parents in a quest for
knowledge, practice, and reinforcement.
It will not, however, be a game-changing reform agent as the private
sector sees it.
With this being said, what are your thoughts on Khan Academy and it's implications on education?
