
Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education - kkleiner
http://singularityhub.com/2011/02/13/yes-the-khan-academy-is-the-future-of-education-video/
======
solipsist
I haven't exactly been as amazed by the Khan Academy as everyone else has.
After watching a few videos, I decided that we need to focus more on the
_material_ that we are teaching - rather than the _methods_ we go about doing
it. They will obviously go hand by hand, but in my opinion the material that
we are teaching is our biggest weakness and therefore needs the most reform.

A video that everyone should take the time to watch is Conrad Wolfram's TED
talk on teaching students with computers
([http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...](http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_math_with_computers.html)).
While we may use computers now to enhance the learning methods, we haven't
taken advantage of the content/knowledge computers have and can supply for us.
The majority of what is taught in grades K-12 in science and math could be
done by a computer in almost no time with increased accuracy. _Why wouldn't we
take advantage of that?_

The gist of Wolfram's talk is that we are teaching students _mechanics_ (which
computers can do more efficiently) when we should be teaching them the higher
orders of thinking and problem solving.

Against popular belief, concepts can be understood without learning the nitty-
gritty mechanics. One could solve a quadratic word problem without solving the
quadratic equation themselves, and still understand the problem just as well.
Think about it: do you need to learn how the engine of a car works before you
can drive it?

While all of this is not entirely relevant to the article, I humbly believe
that the future of education should be and will be (if everything goes right)
orders of magnitudes higher in efficiency as students will spend more time
learning the _right_ material. I'm not sure how much the Khan Academy will
play a role in that...

~~~
nvarsj
"do you need to learn how the engine of a car works before you can drive it?"

No, but you'd be a much better driver if you did.

Understanding the basics of a science, especially math, is extremely important
to fully grasp the higher level topics. I don't believe one can conceptually
understand a topic without understanding the fundamentals that it builds upon.

Unfortunately I see philosophies as you describe in my local school system
(Chicago Public Schools), especially in poverty stricken neighborhoods. High
school kids are given scientific calculators and taught algebra/pre-calc when
they can't even add or multiply single digit numbers. Similarly, there are
pushes to move more "computer learning" into grade school, despite extremely
poor reading and math proficiency.

I can draw parallels in my job as well - it's remarkable how poor most
programmers' basic math skills are. Someone who can do the chain rule is
regarded as a genius. With only a strong grasp of fundamentals, I feel that
many engineers could be substantially more successful.

~~~
solipsist
> _No, but you'd be a much better driver if you did [learn how a car engine
> works]_

Yes, but one simple computer animation could give you the same understanding
of the engine as if you had built the engine yourself. Computers can give you
an understanding of calculations in addition to doing the work.

> _I don't believe one can conceptually understand a topic without
> understanding the fundamentals that it builds upon._

This is probably the biggest argument against using computers to calculate for
you. However, if you haven't already, watch Wolfram's video that I linked to
above as he clearly explains how this belief is not necessarily true. The very
rudimentary basics will need to be learned by calculating, but anything above
the fundamentals can be understood without the calculations.

> _Similarly, there are pushes to move more "computer learning" into grade
> school, despite extremely poor reading and math proficiency._

I think this computer learning is different than the learning I'm talking
about. Schools currently use computers as a medium to enhance the current
education system. They use them to make calculating more interactive and fun.
I think that computers should actually do the calculations, rather than
"tricking" the students into doing the work.

~~~
gliese1337
> The very rudimentary basics will need to be learned by calculating, but
> anything above the fundamentals can be understood without the calculations.

Generally, I agree with this. But if everybody were to adopt that philosophy,
eventually we'd get to the point where nobody could actually implement the
calculations for those high level concepts. And then what happens when you
need to update the software that's been doing all of that for you?

Does _everybody_ need to know how to calculate? Probably not, above arithmetic
and some basic algebra. But a _lot_ of people do, and that needs to be
included in their education _somewhere_.

You're probably aware of all that, but I felt it warrants making explicit.

~~~
solipsist
I am aware of this, but still, thank you for bringing it up as it is an
important issue. The software engineers and people who have to interact with
more calculations than everyone else would at sometime need to learn them - as
you said.

I think _speleding_ is onto something, though:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2213985>

We all believe that calculations need to be taught first, but maybe it is not
necessary. Learning the calculations after the bigger concepts has its own
advantages. Everyone could start with general education, and those that need
it could be taught the more advanced (or one might say, basic) calculations.

------
mey
The Khan Academy is _A_ Future of Education.

Talented educators (non-traditional and traditional) and technology are going
to keep coming together in new and interesting ways. There will be lots of
failures, but Khan Academy will not be the only success. The article doesn't
mention things like MIT's effort in this field that predate Khan's efforts
etc.

~~~
kkleiner
The article doesn't mention MIT, but it does mention other efforts such as
Mathletics. What makes Khan Academy and Mathletics stand out from MIT is that
they are MUCH more than just a collection of videos. Khan and Mathletics
increasingly represent entire ecosystems with points systems, competitions,
tracking of your performance, and so on. That is why Khan exemplifies the
future of education vs simple collections of videos like MIT.

~~~
enry_straker
MIT's Open CourseWare project or OCW can hardly be described as a simple
collection of videos. Each and every course at MIT has put up all their
educational documents including slides, exercises, tests, audio, video,
schedules etc for free. Many courses also include video and other multimedia
artefacts.

The key differentiator is that these are aimed at under-grad and grad students
and are simple conversion of what happens in a course, where the internet is
only incidental.

Khan Academy videos are aimed primarily at school students and are much
shorter, more focused and completely based on the internet. The tests are
geared for online testing, the metrics collected are then displayed online
etc.

~~~
blakeweb
> Each and every course at MIT has put up all their educational documents
> including slides, exercises, tests, audio, video, schedules etc for free.
> Many courses also include video and other multimedia artefacts.

Just to prevent readers from taking that statement literally, only a small
minority of courses offer all these materials. (e.g., see [1]--you can see by
the icons on the left which materials are available for which courses.) Most
only offer lecture notes, and even those are generally very incomplete.

What MIT has done with OCW is outstanding, and I personally have learned a lot
from many courses already, but they still have quite a ways to go to meet such
a comprehensive claim. More funding and enthusiasm for the effort is still
very much needed.

[1]: <http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/>

~~~
buckler
Just as an additional note, MIT came up with a set of OCWs for introductory
courses back in January that are specifically intended for independent
learners (IIRC, one of the MIT's original aims for the OCW project was to
provide materials for educators rather than learners). These 'OCW Scholar'
courses contain complete course material, and I'm guessing we'll have more of
these as time progresses.

Link: <http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ocw-scholar/>

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dwc
As an autodidact interested in exploring more mathematics, of course I learned
about Khan Academy. One look and I was impressed, but that didn't last long.
Though the videos are well done all around, there's no clear curriculum to
follow. Or if there is a curriculum, it's not obvious. Instead, I have a
bazillion videos to choose from. Which videos depend on knowledge in other
videos, and which ones can be done in parallel? No idea.

Education's past is a series of textbooks (plus supplemental info and
exercises), providing a clear path to learning. Khan Academy, such as it now
stands, is a video analog of textbook chapters as discrete units all in an
unorganized pile. Until more is done in the neglected areas, Khan Academy will
remain an extremely valuable resource, but not a curriculum. Even if/when
these missing bits are done this will only be the future of delivery of fairly
traditional materials.

The _real_ future of education is a computerized personal tutor that provides
individual assessment, guidance, alternate explanations where comprehension
lacks, encouragement to pursue natural ability and enthusiasm, etc. That's
pretty ambitious, but not at all inconceivable. We're close enough to being
able to achieve it that we should hold up this ideal goal so we know the right
direction as we build the pieces.

~~~
kamens
Completely agreed (on Khan Academy team).

If you check out the video from that article
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5k98GV7po>), you'll see a lot of the
strides we're making in the areas of individual assessment (mathematics only
at the moment), guidance (full breakdown of hints for every problem we
dynamically generate), alternate explanations where comprehension lacks (list
of all relevant videos next to every problem the student encounters),
encouragement (badges and other game mechanics), and more.

As you said: it's ambitious, and we're far from the end. But we're making
progress every day and seeing extremely positive reactions in all the teachers
and students from our pilot programs.

~~~
cwb
Indeed. Video lectures can be helpful -- in particular for mechanics and
manipulation -- but no reason to be overly excited (there was great hope for
educational use of TV in its early days, unless I'm mistaken). A good book is
usually more effective/efficient if you have patience to actually study it.

What few people seem to get is that we don't need to fix _education_ , we need
to fix _learning_. And for that, we need exercises (as any mathematician would
tell you; also see deliberate practice). It turns out digital exercises afford
a range of interesting opportunities (both the video and article highlight
several) for making learning more effective.

Interfaces can change relatively easily so there'll be a bunch of experiments.
The exercise model is harder. And more interesting. (I've been trying to
figure that out for a while now and discovered a bunch of local minima.) I'm
very curious to see how this exercise model works out -- it seems promising
from what I can tell.

Regardless of how this works out (not to say I think it won't), this
development will raise the bar and the expectations -- both of which has been
too low for too long. That is incredibly valuable.

------
ilamont
_Yes, the Khan Academy IS the Future of Education."_

Then:

 _There are no guarantees, of course._

Maybe, then, it's time to pull back on the hype machine for Khan Academy. I've
used it before, and it's wonderful as a student aid, but it basically boils
down to free instructional videos. It's a great help, but it's hardly the
revolution that the headline makes it out to be.

~~~
kiba
What about exercises with game mechanics?

I think Khan Academy is _becoming_ a whole system of learning rather than just
a very large library of free instruction videos.

~~~
kamens
Bingo. Dismissing Khan Academy because it's currently mostly known for videos
is just as dangerous as dismissing any tiny HN startup that's focusing on a
core idea and, once lessons are learned, iterating from there.

We're not arrogant enough to think we'll start out by building a generic AI
solution to education.

We do know that we have a) a lot of video content that students are constantly
watching, b) dynamically generated math exercises that students use to
practice every day, and c) some very encouraging in-school pilot programs.

We're using those experiences to learn and expand. The YouTube video linked in
the article shows the edges of our progress so far.

~~~
aik
Could you expand on what the in-school pilot programs are? In what way are the
encouraging? What types of schools are you piloting in? Public?

I haven't yet seen much effective use of technology in the learning
environment that touches anything but the periphery of the formal educational
experience. I'd be excited to hear about something better going on!

~~~
kamens
Brief summary: Los Altos school district, 5th and 8th grade classes using KA
as the primary tool for math curriculum, being compared to other 5th and 8th
grade classes in the same school district (those not using KA). Lots of
freedom given to teachers to experiment w/ various KA use. Sal, Shantanu,
Jason, and I have been regularly visiting classes to watch students and
teachers use KA. Feedback has been invaluable.

Much more in various posts of mine ([http://bjk5.com/post/2071068737/khan-
academy-in-the-classroo...](http://bjk5.com/post/2071068737/khan-academy-in-
the-classroom-days-1-and-2)), and more importantly, you can read direct
feedback from teachers and students on their Khan Academy blog:
<http://lasdandkhanacademy.edublogs.org/>

...obviously, many more observations will be published when the pilot is done.

~~~
felipe
How about East Palo Alto?

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jamesjyu
I really can't express how inspirational Khan is. The way he is able to break
down difficult concepts into bite sized chunks is amazing.

It was really inevitable that someone with his abilities would change the way
education is delivered by using tools like YouTube. Of course, his teaching
style may not be for everyone, but the mere fact that the Khan Academy exists,
and is free, gives me great hope for humanity.

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andresmh
I have not RTFA but equating content delivery with education seems risky. Yes,
Khan Academy videos are engaging and often better than getting content from
books, but education is much more than content. Education is also about
building, creating, interacting, sharing.

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patrickod
The one thing the Khan academy and other such resources is the inspiration,
personal engagement, guidance and other things that teachers and tutors do.
Granted for some people these things have little bearing on their learning I
think that for the majority of students they can make all the difference. No
doubt people here have found their interest in a subject at school or college
diminished due to a bad teacher or vice-versa

~~~
jasonrr
The Khan Academy is not seeking to replace teachers/coaches/tutors. The good
ones will take advantage of what resources like the KA have to offer. On the
other hand, a bad teacher has the ability to damage a student's ability and
desire to learn for years.

There is a chance that the Khan Academy could make the world bad-teacher proof
by giving students a resource with high quality guided instruction that
includes mechanisms to keep them motivated, and I think that is nearly equally
important.

(disclosure: KA Designer)

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pixcavator
I am afraid they lack the background to pull off "the future of education",
certainly not on the college level. Sorry for being harsh.

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asdkl234890
Lets hope so. While higher education in itself is valuable, the prices most
often being asked for it are not exactly worth paying.

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theklub
The Future of Education is going to be game oriented, getting kids to watch
boring videos will be very hard.

~~~
paulitex
I strongly suspect you didn't watch the youtube video in the article... Game
mechanics are one of the KA's system's biggest features.

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nerfhammer
Khan Academy has poked a hole in my heart that needs to be filled: A computer
science curriculum

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badwetter
Education should be a basic human right!

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mkramlich
Always bet on talent. Talent is rare and the main bottleneck in most human
enterprises. Salman Khan is a great talent with a very rare combo of
qualities.

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rick_2047
I wonder if Khan Academy takes in external videos (other wise making something
functional with google sites is fine with me but wouldn't get nearly as much
traction). I have 10min long videos explaining Digital electronics basics. My
tech went one step backwards from khan, I just used pen-paper and one webcame.
:) Looking into getting my videos reviewed by them, otherwise my deadline
would be.... April 1st. (just thought that up now, but people say its good to
have a deadline).

