Alex Wagner
"Can Sal Khan Reform Education in America?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/04/the-khan-academy-and-educ_n_844390.html
The Huffington Post
April 11, 2011
Sal Khan has created an website (http://www.khanacademy.org/) with extensive videos (2,100 to be exact) and 100 self-paced exercises translated in many languages to assist children with mathematics. This website was recommended to me by a co-worker at Bank of America whose kids were having trouble with math. Once they started using Mr. Khan's website their math problems went away. I was a little skeptical about it, but once I started seeing him appear on TED videos and being promoted by Bill Gates (which may or may not be a good thing) I started to pay attention to Khan's Academy.
As the article points out what Mr. Khan is doing (assisting with math) is not new, but he has found a way to make learning math easy to do, easy to access and something that will benefit both the student and the teacher. And Mr. Khan points out people cannot just rely on his videos, but capable teachers are needed to provide one-on-one time with their students and to be technically savvy so to effectively use the program.
As we talked about on Saturday this website is not intended to replace teachers or to be used for technology's sake, but is a useful tool to assist and engage kids that either do poorly and/or are not engaged in math. And if there are no computers in school the videos can be handed out on memory sticks so the videos can be used at home. This is a very useful program and who do we have to thank for it? As Captain Kirk once famously shouted, "Khan!!!!"
I am not sure that he alone is the answer. I have gone to his website and looked at a few of his videos. I think he has place in the talk. He offers a cool teaching tool.
ReplyDeleteIf online teaching is going to work - I think he has some neat contributions. I am planning on taking our kids through some of his stuff over the summer. Yes, I am that mom - we still do at least some school over the summer:)
I work with some students that might find these videos helpful. I am going to offer to take small groups in and let them watch and discuss one. See what sort of reponse we get.
We shall see.
Jessica, I would agree that Sal is not the complete answer, but I think schools thinking outside the box for solutions is what the article and Khan is trying to get across to the school system and people in general. This answer seems fairly simple and not intrusive as well as being cost-effective.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you are using them with your students! Let me know what they and you think and if the videos work for them.