Khan Academy - Changing the rules of Education

Change. We need it, right? But where do we start? With entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are changing the world, one small business at a time.

Let’s start with the Khan Academy and how it changed the rules of education. Khan Academy is an

educational website that, aims to let anyone “LEARN ALMOST ANYTHING—FOR FREE”.

Do you know how much does it take to raise a child?

The cost of raising a child alone (from birth to age 21) is approximately Rs 55 Lakhs.

46% of that is child education = Rs 25 lakhs. If education costs money, it becomes an expense and essentially schools become a business, and a business’ responsibility is to cater to the bottom line – profit.

Education = Expense

Schools = Business

Education = Profit

In today’s consolidating economy, people are getting paid less to do more, yet the cost of education continues to rise at an average rate of 6% annually.

If a parent’s income suffers in any way, they’re forced to make a very tough decision – one that may force them to pull their child out of school.

Which raises a question: Why isn’t education free? Doesn’t everyone have a right to learn?

Let’s imagine for a minute – A world where education is accessible, portable, shareable, trackable and best of all, free.

This is the vision of the Khan Academy.

Introduction:

Students, teachers or anyone interested in understanding the concepts from mathematics, science, history, economics etc can scan through a collection of 3200+ videos on the website. The videos are generally crude and seven to fourteen minutes long, they consist of a voice-over by Khan describing a mathematical concept or explaining how to solve a problem while his hand-scribbled formulas and diagrams appear onscreen. All the videos are uploaded on youtube and are available at free of cost. In addition to these videos, the website offers software that generates practice problems and rewards good performance with videogame-like badges—for answering a “streak” of questions correctly, say, or mastering a series of algebra levels.

The Concept:

In 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin using Yahoo’s doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought similar help, he decided it would be more practical to distribute the tutorials on YouTube. Their popularity there and the testimonials of appreciative students prompted Khan to quit his job in finance as a hedge fund analyst at Connective Capital Management in 2009, and focus on the tutorials full time.

Now the question which arises is that, do really there was a need for him to quit his job and start a non-profit organization?

The answer to this question lies in the vision of Sal Khan. The goal of the Khan Academy is to use technology to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. For Sal Khan creating a social impact is much more than making money. Inspired from his vision, the Khan academy is now having a backing from Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and Google. Also several people across the world have donated some amount to the organization.

What’s in there for students?

•  It truly defines the concept of “Education for all”. The reason behind this is wherever and whoever you are the lessons which you will see are all going to be same for everyone. It is extremely difficult to find people in rural villages with the skill set to even teach basic arithmetic, much less higher mathematics and science. Government of developing nations can provide a better education to the students in the villages by just showing the videos in the schools.
• This site is just amazing because it really teaches you everything which you may have not understood in the class. Also, if you’re interested in a certain area, you can go above and beyond to pursue more information and learn more.
• One of the reasons why teaching people through youtube videos is better than at school is that you can choose what speed you want to learn at, and you can choose which topics you might want to put more emphasis on.
• It can be intimidating or just plain confusing when your teacher is going on and on, writing example after example on the whiteboard.
• If you’re in class and you have a question about a pretty basic concept that everyone in the class already knows, you might be embarrassed to ask a question about it and get it clarified. By using Khan Academy you have the anonymity of the internet when you’re watching these videos so you can choose what you want to watch and what you might need to watch 3 or 4 times.

Have a look at Sal’s engaging TED talk, where the professor himself breaks down exactly how the Khan Academy works (If you can’t watch the entire 20 minutes, skip forward to 14:30, where he expands on exactly how they’re hoping to change education on a global scale)

Suggestion:

As someone who struggles with math, the Khan Academy would seem perfect for him. My problem though is I don’t know where to begin. Just jumping at random into a video suddenly makes me aware that I need lots of prior knowledge before I can understand this video, but there’s no help on that. He can add a list of topics which you must know before viewing the video in certain topic.

For eg: If a person is viewing the video on linear equations then it should mention that you need to have an understanding of addition, subtraction and multiplication. In this way a person not satisfying the basic requirement to view linear equation video can go back to these topics.

Our responsibility:

Once you, your children or students have managed to learn something from the Khan Academy, why not contribute a little something to this amazing nonprofit, as a “Thank You” to Sal and his team, who are simply trying to make a world-class education available to anyone, anywhere.

After all, as Bill Gates said (about the Khan Academy), “I think you’ve just got a glimpse at the future of education.”

Visit: www.khanacademy.org/