All,
For the last 2 weeks I have been investigating the Khan Academy. They offer online mini lessons on tons of concepts in math and science. Kim Marshall in his weekly memo brought this to my attention.
Sal Khan, the creator, originally began making videos to help his cousins. The videos were so popular that he eventually gave up his job and formed a non-profit company to work on these videos full time. At this point there are over 2100 videos. Khan's thought is that providing traditional lecture material online allows students to go at their own pace. His model actually turns education all around and posits that students would watch the lectures for homework and then come to school and do what used to be called homework. He is also very interested in the idea of pacing. Students working at their own pace is a key to his ideas about education.
In some circles Khan and his academy have been criticized because they don't teach critical thinking and problem solving. The videos focus more on the acquisition of knowledge than on the transfer of it. But Khan doesn't claim that his videos do any more than that. His hope is that the videos will allow more time for teachers to teach problem solving and critical thinking.
I'm still not sure how I will use these in my own teaching. But at this point I feel like it is worth all of us taking a look at.
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Link to the materials.
TED video of Khan presenting his work
Enjoy the weekend,
Tom
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