INTRODUCTION
I see want to see a world that we tap into the potential of kids. I want Khan Academy to provide a love of learning. Sal Khan
Sal Khan, who has 3 degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard, developed the website. He originally posted lessons on You Tube for his young cousin and others soon found the lessons to be effective. The Gates Foundation and Google financed, with $15 million, the development of software to change how math is taught in schools. In essence, students (on their own time) watch a 15-minute video on an educational concept and then go to school to have the teacher work as a coach rather than operating in a traditional mode as lecturer as students go over the assigned problems. According to Khan, at school there would be less lecturing and more interaction with students. Teachers would have the software to monitor the individual progress of students as they work on problems in the classroom. Students who grasp the concepts move on to further academic challenges while those having difficulty get one-on-one help from the teacher. Teaching in this manner is touted as taking the passivity out of the classroom.
Ever since quitting his job as a successful hedge-fund analyst two years ago to dedicate himself full time to this labor of love, Khan has managed to win fans worldwide and goad skeptical educators.
His simply narrated, faceless home videos on everything from algebra to French history have been viewed half a billion times. A number of schools began "flipping" their classrooms, having students study Khan videos by night and do homework with teachers by day.
In the process, Khan has fueled the debate over tech's growing influence on education while garnering the support of powerful friends
Each day around 100,000 to 200,000 students watch videos by khan academy.
VISION AND MISSION
Sal Khan and Khan Academy have a great vision of providing resources to all. The goal of the Khan Academy is to use technology to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Khan Academy does not charge nor do they plan to charge for their services.
The Ability to Learn Content Based on One’s Own Time and Need
A strength of content-based videos, not just from Khan Academy, is that people can view them during their own time frame, reviewing parts that are of particular interest or to develop greater understanding. Sal Khan emphasized this point during his talk. He described how students in our traditional education system are provided with an instructional unit and then tested. Then the next unit is taught. But what happens to those students who tested lower on a unit? They are asked to move on even though they have not achieved proficiency. This often results in the student failing to fully understand the concepts, often giving up and feeling like a failure.
Sal Khan stresses that learning content should be based on the students’ timing. It is based on knowledge acquisition and gaining proficiencies.
A strength of content-based videos, not just from Khan Academy, is that people can view them during their own time frame, reviewing parts that are of particular interest or to develop greater understanding. Sal Khan emphasized this point during his talk. He described how students in our traditional education system are provided with an instructional unit and then tested. Then the next unit is taught. But what happens to those students who tested lower on a unit? They are asked to move on even though they have not achieved proficiency. This often results in the student failing to fully understand the concepts, often giving up and feeling like a failure.
Sal Khan stresses that learning content should be based on the students’ timing. It is based on knowledge acquisition and gaining proficiencies.
TEAMWORK
Where he once was an army of one, the staff has been ramped up to 32, including the recent high-profile addition of Google's first hired employee, programming ace Craig Silverstein. The staff's immediate mission is to further broaden the site's content and improve assessment and feedback features so the Khan Academy experience becomes more interactive.
BUSINESS MODEL
Khan academy is officially a not for profit entity. The service relies on donations and includes high profile donors such as Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
A service using many of the Khan academy design formats which appears to be following a commercial strategy is Code Academy - which focuses on learning programming. This service has venture capital funding and might charge for particular courses or lessons. Currently all courses are free. There are plans to translate the Khan Academy videos based on its mission to offer anyone anywhere a free, world class education. It believes its mission is best served as a not for profit. The online learning, for profit space, also includes other ventures especially rich media iPad apps offering a richer experience of book.
FUTURE
Love it or hate it, Khan Academy is part of a looming tech-education iceberg. To go from making videos for your cousins to promoting a new model for education in a few short years is amazing. But it's also the best thing that can happen to this space. It needs more smart people who care. The future prospects are very bright for Khan Academy.
