

Johnny Chung Lee to donate $5k for Khan-style linear algebra lectures - chl
http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/01/khan-academy-closest-thing-to.html

======
naner
This is something I've thought about frequently. I would like to find a non-
profit who would take donations and apply them towards finding and paying very
good experts on any number of subjects, help them design and record their
lectures, collect supplemental materials (required reading materials, exercise
questions, tests, etc), and post it online for free (public domain?).

Khan is great but he cannot teach everything. Programming, history,
literature, graphic design, etc. all deserve similar treatment.

~~~
pixcavator
You described a university.

~~~
moultano
Universities would be very different if their sole purpose was to put great
educational content online for free.

~~~
shadowpwner
Perhaps not the _sole_ purpose, but check out opencourseware:
<http://www.ocwconsortium.org/>

------
jackfoxy
I'm not sure how to pass the _clearly understandable Khan academy style_ test,
but Gilbert Strang of MIT has a series of 35 excellent lectures on Linear
Algebra, starting here <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK3O402wf1c>

~~~
ludwigvan
Absolutely. Strang makes it seem really easy, perfect lecturer.

The lectures are available on iTunes University too.

You may find his style slow though, I used to watch his lectures at about 1.5x
speed using Quicktime (opt+ff). You can use vlc too on Windows.

~~~
johnwatson11218
I am watching those lectures as well. I ordered the previous edition of the
textbook to follow along with. One thing that really irked me was that the
quality of the audio in some of the lectures was spotty. I had to turn the
audio up all the way in my headphones and then it seemed to only come in on
one side. I know it is a minor detail but when I think about the high quality
feeds dedicated to celebrity gossip it gets a little bit depressing.

I clicked into some of the other courses and was disappointed to see that
video lectures weren't available for all the courses. We really need to get to
a point where all the math, comp sci, etc is available in high quality format.
Another thing we need is redundancy. I think G. Strang is an excellent
lecturer but we need variety for different learning styles. Still I am
impressed with what MIT is doing and hope to see more of this in the future.

~~~
ludwigvan
Yes, the book is great as well, it's written in a very friendly tone.

These lectures were recorded long ago (1999), recent lectures (on calculus and
another course) by Strang have higher video quality.

I have experienced mono audio on some too, you might be able to fix it with
your video player though. ( If you are watching on iPhone/iPad, there is a
mono setting in settings-accessibility btw.)

Check out <http://www-math.mit.edu/~gs/> for the other lectures by Strang.
Also in this paper: "too much calculus" <http://www-
math.mit.edu/~gs/papers/essay.pdf> he discusses why linear algebra should be
emphasized more (and calculus less) in the digital age.

~~~
johnwatson11218
yea I caught that point about too much calculus. I studied math as an
undergrad - 3 semesters of calc, 2 real analysis, 2 more of topology and have
not used any of it as a programer. I did linear algebra and discrete math but
it was not enough to really make a difference. It seems like history is more
at play here than anything else. For 300+ years they have been polishing up
that continuous math track and it was what all the scientists and engineers
found useful.

I also think this is the reason everybody uses doubles and floats for doing
financial apps. It makes so much more sense to use integers and talk about
"how many" pennies one has rather than "how much" money one has. Floats and
doubles were designed to estimate continuous quantities not exact figures.

------
bugsy
Summary: He might be willing to "donate" $100 to Khan Academy (not you) if you
spend several hours producing a high quality educational video for him on
specific linear algebra topics he doesn't understand, and he reviews your
videos and finds them to be completely to his satisfaction, according to
criteria he will not specify.

It's a very insulting offer rather that inspiring as he no doubt hopes. $100
for an instructional video is nothing. $100,000 per video might get you some
nice PBS style ones. In between is the realm of hope to get something good.
Wanting custom lectures tailored to your private needs though, and payment is
contingent on if he feels like it? Sheesh.

I suggest instead depositing the $5000 prize money in trust, establishing
clear criteria for winning, and then empanel impartial and qualified judges to
choose winners according to the established criteria. For the 10 best videos
there will be a $500 prize each, and maybe an extra $1000 for the top one
overall. The prize must be awarded no matter what, even if they only get 10
videos total that are not as great as they would hope. The credibility that
comes from actually awarding the prizes will improve the quality of entries of
the next round.

As it is, the terms are so wishy washy that most likely the $5000 will never
be awarded and a lot of people will waste a lot of time and then be frustrated
to find a whiney person explain why nothing was really worthy of his precious
prize money.

Another way to structure it would be to award grants of production equipment
and software for video and virtual blackboard work to assist talented teachers
in producing videos. These could be granted to the most promising 20 videos,
with the hope that they would come back to enter phase 2 of the competition
where they produce things with their new pedagogic gear.

------
melipone
What is the name of the software for the electronic blackboard used in Khan's
videos?

------
nickpinkston
Ive been going through Khan's Linear algebra vids after having Lee's problem -
I'd highly recommend them for this use case. I'm hoping the same goes for the
Khan's diff eq vids!

------
kmfrk
What is he going to do, if several people post lectures of acceptable quality?

~~~
mnutt
For each acceptable one posted he will "donate $100 to Khan Academy up to
$5000"

~~~
candre717
The author should post a rubric, so that others can determine what's
acceptable and what should be covered.

