Ask HN: What's Khan Academy's next step? - pedrodelfino
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yusee
Passive learning. Podcasts. People want to learn things. But people don't want
to devote time to learning. Passive media that reclaims dead time is the
solution.

Listening to a podcast during your commute is clearly different from watching
a lecture, taking notes, and solving problems. Not every concept is conducive
to passive learning. That's no problem. Let the podcasts cover concepts that
tie into further active study.

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pedrodelfino
Thanks for the comment, quite out of the box. Nonetheless, my bet would be the
opposite. I think people are getting addicted to things like social media and
this is obviously bad for academic performance. I reckon that some educational
platforms will do the opposite of what social media apps do: create an
environment of focus. I can imagine khan academy having features like
pomodoro's timers and extensions which would block "distractive" websites
during exercises. I can see a future more of productivity apps, like "Rescue
Time", joining educational platforms than education joining social media as
"soft" content.

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mathattack
1) National infrastructure for self-directed learning. It will be something
more than traditional homeschooling, but something less than classroom driven
private or public schools.

2) Personalizing content delivery to 1 on 1. (Having multiple videos per
content area and figuring which works best for each learner - or perhaps
videos that can be spliced together in real time based on the learner)

Their secret sauce is the data on student understanding available to teachers,
not the videos themselves.

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toomuchtodo
Homeschooling/independent education workflow. Let me pay you so I can setup my
child with the curriculum they need from Grade 1-12, track their progress,
etc.

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samfisher83
What about socializing? How will your kids socialize with other people? School
is just not about math and reading.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I can socialize my child(ren) without subjecting them to the public school
system.

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blabla_blublu
Diversification and Appeal to learners across age groups [Education for
adults].

IMO, building new courses in disciplines for which learning materials might
not be readily available, but are important nevertheless, without diluting the
standards they maintain.

Example : Basic carpentry ?

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pramodliv1
Developing their own curriculum from scratch that is not tied to common-core,
NCERT(India) or other government-created ones which focus mostly on
memorization and getting children through the assembly line.

I'd love to see more interactive exercises focusing on problem solving,
creating projects, collaborating with other students instead of answering a
bunch of quizzes after listening to 30 minutes of video.

