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Khan Academy: The future of education?

March 11, 2012 4:02 PM

With the backing of Gates and Google, Khan Academy and its free online educational videos are moving into the classroom and across the world. Their goal: to revolutionize how we teach and learn. Sanjay Gupta reports.

Khan Academy: The future of education?

60 Minutes OverTimeSanjay Gupta teaches basic brain science

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by pattiaker April 5, 2013 1:57 PM EDT
Wow! This gentleman is amazing! We can all learn new things from this guy. Calculus has always been an issue for me and I am 50 years old!-PA <3 !!!
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by AlvoInstitute November 9, 2012 2:50 PM EST
Khan Academy has changed the blended learning landscape.
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by jdaven April 19, 2012 8:36 AM EDT
EUREKA!! Let's get this education dinosaur up and ROCKIN'!!! Godspeed on implementation!
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by jdaven April 19, 2012 8:32 AM EDT
EUREKA!!! Let's get this education dinosaur UP and ROCKIN'! Godspeed on this implementation! Thank you 60 Minutes!
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by keri107 April 9, 2012 2:21 PM EDT
I am not getting on board with this approach. The question here is, are we talking about real learning or about another approach to indoctrinating students into a belief system. Why does that child aspire to go to college? Because he loves learning and has a sense of his own innate talents and abilities to serve the rest of the world? Or simply he hopesto get a better "job" serving someone else's vision? The current global economy is proving that is merely a belief for many college-educated people are still seeking work with living wages that corresponds to their previous work or better and the newly-graduated are finding there are not many entry-level jobs to go around. Many have tried and only a few have succeeded in creating "education" that is truly based on the individual's natural way of learning and aptitude. My instinct tells me the Khan Academy is not one of them. It's tutoring to supplement the current classroom. Will Khan's approach really draw students in considering the fact that students often resist "homework" outside the classroom. And humans nevertheless are here to interact with each other "face to face" -- they can't avoid that. In that regard can Khan's system tutor them in human interaction? True learning is about having curiosity and questioning everything, especially the belief systems of others that do not ring true according to our own experience and inner knowing. Does the Khan Academy do that?
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by jross1234 April 6, 2012 10:22 AM EDT
Just reading a few of the comments simply proves what the gentleman from Google states in the piece. Not good or bad, just true.
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by bubba_southmost April 2, 2012 9:41 PM EDT
Kudos to the teachers who have already posted some obvious flaws in this "revolutionary" type of teaching. Lest anyone forget, we've had piles of so-called "educational" programming since movies first became available. They used to show them to us in elementary school back in the 1960s. In middle school (1968) I was in an auditorium class that was taught almost exclusively with films. I can't remember a single thing from that class. There's also been "educational" TV in the form of Sesame Street and other similar shows for 40 years. Animal Planet. The History Channel. Discovery. Now ask yourself, are students smarter, better informed, and better prepared than they were 40-50 years ago? Does anyone really believe, with all the various screens that kids have their faces glued to these days, that adding another one to their day is going to "revolutionize" their learning? And by the way, we've had vast centers of free learning for over 100 years all across the US called "libraries," which seem to be carrying fewer and fewer books and more and more movies, audio books, games, etc. The fact is learning doesn't occur just because someone comes up with a novel way to package it; it takes someone who wants to learn because they see some value in it, whether for a job, self improvement, or simple curiosity about a topic. It takes initiative, work, and discipline. For excellent learning to take place takes passion on the part of the student. Screens encourage passivity; it's already been documented in laboratory studies. Small classes with good teachers teaching what they're knowledgeable about - that's the ideal learning environment.
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by mray2b1 March 19, 2012 1:21 PM EDT
Khan's videos are a good tool and can be used as an adjunct to classroom instruction. In the US we keep looking for panaceas. Not all students will be able to utilize an on-line academy because they ned someone to understand their learning style or needs. Khan's lessons are great for some students who can learn in this way but remember all humans do not learn in the same way. I am a teacher, I have taught for an on-line academy and it worked for about 20% of students. Many students need teachers to keep them focused, tailor lessons, check in that they are doing work. Not all students will understand his lesson, some will. There is no one magic bullet for education. Also remember the students who do not do well in this country are overwhelming poor and ethnic minority students. The majority of schools are doing a good job for the majority of students, but not all.
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by krweaver01 March 18, 2012 2:12 AM EDT
Kahn should get praise for the amount of time and energy he's devoted to creating all of the video content. However, I have viewed some number of his math videos and found a range of errors. What I believe is just as bad as finding errors in his presentation is his use of misleading math statements that, in my opinion, have been the cause of student issues for decades. For example, Kahn almost always says "minus" when he should be saying "negative." Minus is like a verb; it's action; it's a synonym for "subtract." Sometimes when you subtract one number from another, the result is NEGATIVE...not minus! UGH! Kahn, there are other examples like this. Great job, but it could be even better!!!
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by mnorling March 17, 2012 11:57 AM EDT
Wow, watching a video you can rewind and rewatch really makes class time effective-- Imagine that! HEY, I wonder if I would get a similar effect if my Ethics students READ THE BOOK the night before? Ya think? Would our discussions of Kantian ethics be ever so much more exciting? Would they learn more, and faster?
BTW we are all being measured in terms of quantifiable learning units now (in colleges they are called SLO's, or "Student Learning Outcomes"). The drive towards quantification is a part of the process of reducing knowledge to measurable digital units and education to a commodity.
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