Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

http://singularityhub.com/2011/02/13/yes-the-khan-academy-is-the-future-of-education-video/

by kkleiner • 15 years ago

169 70 15 years ago

mey• 15 years ago

The Khan Academy is A Future of Education.

Talented educators (non-traditional and traditional) and technology are going to keep coming together in new and interesting ways. There will be lots of failures, but Khan Academy will not be the only success. The article doesn't mention things like MIT's effort in this field that predate Khan's efforts etc.

kkleiner• 15 years ago

The article doesn't mention MIT, but it does mention other efforts such as Mathletics. What makes Khan Academy and Mathletics stand out from MIT is that they are MUCH more than just a collection of videos. Khan and Mathletics increasingly represent entire ecosystems with points systems, competitions, tracking of your performance, and so on. That is why Khan exemplifies the future of education vs simple collections of videos like MIT.

enry_straker• 15 years ago

MIT's Open CourseWare project or OCW can hardly be described as a simple collection of videos. Each and every course at MIT has put up all their educational documents including slides, exercises, tests, audio, video, schedules etc for free. Many courses also include video and other multimedia artefacts.

The key differentiator is that these are aimed at under-grad and grad students and are simple conversion of what happens in a course, where the internet is only incidental.

Khan Academy videos are aimed primarily at school students and are much shorter, more focused and completely based on the internet. The tests are geared for online testing, the metrics collected are then displayed online etc.

ilamont• 15 years ago

Yes, the Khan Academy IS the Future of Education."

Then:

There are no guarantees, of course.

Maybe, then, it's time to pull back on the hype machine for Khan Academy. I've used it before, and it's wonderful as a student aid, but it basically boils down to free instructional videos. It's a great help, but it's hardly the revolution that the headline makes it out to be.

kiba• 15 years ago

What about exercises with game mechanics?

I think Khan Academy is becoming a whole system of learning rather than just a very large library of free instruction videos.

kamens3• 15 years ago

Bingo. Dismissing Khan Academy because it's currently mostly known for videos is just as dangerous as dismissing any tiny HN startup that's focusing on a core idea and, once lessons are learned, iterating from there.

We're not arrogant enough to think we'll start out by building a generic AI solution to education.

We do know that we have a) a lot of video content that students are constantly watching, b) dynamically generated math exercises that students use to practice every day, and c) some very encouraging in-school pilot programs.

We're using those experiences to learn and expand. The YouTube video linked in the article shows the edges of our progress so far.

jamesjyu• 15 years ago

I really can't express how inspirational Khan is. The way he is able to break down difficult concepts into bite sized chunks is amazing.

It was really inevitable that someone with his abilities would change the way education is delivered by using tools like YouTube. Of course, his teaching style may not be for everyone, but the mere fact that the Khan Academy exists, and is free, gives me great hope for humanity.

solipsist11• 15 years ago

I haven't exactly been as amazed by the Khan Academy as everyone else has. After watching a few videos, I decided that we need to focus more on the material that we are teaching - rather than the methods we go about doing it. They will obviously go hand by hand, but in my opinion the material that we are teaching is our biggest weakness and therefore needs the most reform.

A video that everyone should take the time to watch is Conrad Wolfram's TED talk on teaching students with computers (http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...). While we may use computers now to enhance the learning methods, we haven't taken advantage of the content/knowledge computers have and can supply for us. The majority of what is taught in grades K-12 in science and math could be done by a computer in almost no time with increased accuracy. Why wouldn't we take advantage of that?

The gist of Wolfram's talk is that we are teaching students mechanics (which computers can do more efficiently) when we should be teaching them the higher orders of thinking and problem solving.

Against popular belief, concepts can be understood without learning the nitty-gritty mechanics. One could solve a quadratic word problem without solving the quadratic equation themselves, and still understand the problem just as well. Think about it: do you need to learn how the engine of a car works before you can drive it?

While all of this is not entirely relevant to the article, I humbly believe that the future of education should be and will be (if everything goes right) orders of magnitudes higher in efficiency as students will spend more time learning the right material. I'm not sure how much the Khan Academy will play a role in that...

vidar• 15 years ago

Thats a tricky thing to do though, where do you draw the line?

solipsist11• 15 years ago

That's a good question. We need to keep in mind that computers are never going to go backwards in innovation. Once a computer is capable of some calculation, students will never need to have to do it by themselves again. However, they will still need to know how to interact with that calculation and understand the variables/relationships in order to set up the calculation.

Where do you draw the line?

Instead of just one line, you have to draw two lines. One would be on the more elementary end of the spectrum. Students have to learn the rudimentary basic calculations (or memorization) in order to function well in everyday life and higher levels of education. Simple addition, subtract, division, multiplication, estimation, understanding of relationships would be necessary. As much as I adore algebra, it could be left to the computer. Therefore the first line would be drawn at a point where the material does not show up in everyday scenarios.

The next line would be drawn at the opposite end of the spectrum where humans need to come in and do the higher orders of thinking. Given the right software, students would be able to visualize and understand the basics of the calculations and their relationships without actually calculating them. They would therefore be able to use computers in more applied problems - ones that they would be confronted in their careers later on in life. A few experiments could be conducted to find exactly where this line would be drawn. It would be at the point where humans do the smallest amount of calculation work while still having a solid understanding. Computers may be able to work past this line, but they would end up assisting the students to the point where the students lose the understanding of the concepts.

If the US and other countries truly put the time, money, and effort into this reform, I'm sure they could be quite successful.

However, another tricky thing to think about would be transitioning into this new and reformed type of education...

psykotic5• 15 years ago

That too much emphasis is put on manual computation is obvious. But taking the opposite tack is an overcorrection. Computing and solving by hand is a font of endless insight in mathematics at any level and should not be left to computers.

Take an elementary matter such as convergence of infinite series. If you've never hand-computed a truncated power series for e^x term by term and noted its rapid convergence rate for positive x, I dare say your understanding of basic calculus is impoverished. Once you've seen the convergence first hand for particular values of x, the proof of its general convergence immediately suggests itself. But if you've only seen the abstract proof, you would probably never have realized that the e^x power series has extremely initial poor convergence for negative x. (Try it for x = -10 to see what I mean. Poor convergence and massive cancellation. That's why numerical analysts always evaluate e^x as 1/e^(-x) for negative x.)

solipsist11• 15 years ago

If you were going to major in math, then you may need to go back and learn all the basic calculations in order to build on them. But for anyone else (even scientists), the solution I mentioned above should be enough. Your example of e^x is not closely enough tied to a real world application; therefore it's hard for me to work with it.

nvarsj• 15 years ago

"do you need to learn how the engine of a car works before you can drive it?"

No, but you'd be a much better driver if you did.

Understanding the basics of a science, especially math, is extremely important to fully grasp the higher level topics. I don't believe one can conceptually understand a topic without understanding the fundamentals that it builds upon.

Unfortunately I see philosophies as you describe in my local school system (Chicago Public Schools), especially in poverty stricken neighborhoods. High school kids are given scientific calculators and taught algebra/pre-calc when they can't even add or multiply single digit numbers. Similarly, there are pushes to move more "computer learning" into grade school, despite extremely poor reading and math proficiency.

I can draw parallels in my job as well - it's remarkable how poor most programmers' basic math skills are. Someone who can do the chain rule is regarded as a genius. With only a strong grasp of fundamentals, I feel that many engineers could be substantially more successful.

solipsist11• 15 years ago

> No, but you'd be a much better driver if you did [learn how a car engine works]

Yes, but one simple computer animation could give you the same understanding of the engine as if you had built the engine yourself. Computers can give you an understanding of calculations in addition to doing the work.

> I don't believe one can conceptually understand a topic without understanding the fundamentals that it builds upon.

This is probably the biggest argument against using computers to calculate for you. However, if you haven't already, watch Wolfram's video that I linked to above as he clearly explains how this belief is not necessarily true. The very rudimentary basics will need to be learned by calculating, but anything above the fundamentals can be understood without the calculations.

> Similarly, there are pushes to move more "computer learning" into grade school, despite extremely poor reading and math proficiency.

I think this computer learning is different than the learning I'm talking about. Schools currently use computers as a medium to enhance the current education system. They use them to make calculating more interactive and fun. I think that computers should actually do the calculations, rather than "tricking" the students into doing the work.

speleding• 15 years ago

> No, but you'd be a much better driver if you did.

Agreed, but it might still be a good idea to change the order in which you teach them: first learn to drive, then learn how the car works inside. There is ample evidence that the human brain is better capable of understanding if it understands the big picture first (for proof see: "The pyramid principle" by M.Minto)

StrawberryFrog• 15 years ago

No, but you'd be a much better driver if you did.

And I think that the time is better spent learning to drive. That's just an unfounded opinion, but at least I can see it as such. Do you have any evidence that understanding engines makes drivers "much better"?

palish2• 15 years ago

K-12 isn't generally about learning. It is a daycare for children and young adults.

(I am 23 now. I left school when I was 17 to pursue a career in the gamedev industry. Daycare was not the place for me, and I haven't regretted dropping out.)

solipsist11• 15 years ago

I know. Talk about a waste of time. Turns out to be 70,000 hours that each person spends in K-12 school. Add any outside school work and that could be closer 90,000 hours.

lutorm• 15 years ago

Against popular belief, concepts can be understood without learning the nitty-gritty mechanics.

I disagree. The problem is that you don't know that you understand a concept until you actually can apply your conceptual understanding to accomplish something. The world is full of people who "understand" quantum mechanics or relativity in terms of half-baked analogies and are unable to apply those concepts to anything but pseudo-scientific discussions.

Real conceptual understanding comes form having worked with the subject area enough that you have built your own conceptual framework. You can't really just teach someone a conceptual framework, because the words you use to describe your framework will likely be interpreted in a completely different way by someone else.

cicero• 15 years ago

In the book Why Don't Students Like School ( http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/04705...) Daniel Willingham argues that people need to have a good vocabulary of mechanics, basic concepts, and skills in order to be able to move on to higher order knowledge. Children should learn how to calculate not necessarily to do calculations instead of a computer, but to help their brains develop.

Besides, until kids hit puberty, their brains aren't ready for higher orders of thinking. What they are good at is memorization and mechanics. The more mechanics they learn and the more they memorize as little kids, the better equipped they will be for higher order thinking as teens and adults.

kevinchen• 15 years ago

However, we are still teaching and emphasizing arithmetic and memorization in high school — even in the advanced classes. That's the problem, really.

maxbRuns• 15 years ago

Computer-use should not replace the nitty-gritty mechanics; it should change the way students learn the nitty-gritty mechanics.

Instead of a homework assignment like this: 1. compute this integral. 2. compute this integral. 3. compute this integral. 4. compute this integral. 5. compute this integral.

Students should be getting homework assignments like this: 1. compute this integral. 2. write a procedure to compute any integral.

Toledonor• 15 years ago

One reason educational material is poor is that it's inevitably written by someone who finds it hard to imagine what it's like not to understand it.

This is why all such material should come with commentaries by thoughtful students which explain it in different ways and link to additional resources. And with commentaries on the commentaries, etc. (We all have different misconceptions.)

There also needs to be a mechanism for rapidly correcting errors. Not every few years but every few days. (Text books are full of errors.)

All of which suggests that we need more educational material which is online, open source and wikified.

dwc4• 15 years ago

As an autodidact interested in exploring more mathematics, of course I learned about Khan Academy. One look and I was impressed, but that didn't last long. Though the videos are well done all around, there's no clear curriculum to follow. Or if there is a curriculum, it's not obvious. Instead, I have a bazillion videos to choose from. Which videos depend on knowledge in other videos, and which ones can be done in parallel? No idea.

Education's past is a series of textbooks (plus supplemental info and exercises), providing a clear path to learning. Khan Academy, such as it now stands, is a video analog of textbook chapters as discrete units all in an unorganized pile. Until more is done in the neglected areas, Khan Academy will remain an extremely valuable resource, but not a curriculum. Even if/when these missing bits are done this will only be the future of delivery of fairly traditional materials.

The real future of education is a computerized personal tutor that provides individual assessment, guidance, alternate explanations where comprehension lacks, encouragement to pursue natural ability and enthusiasm, etc. That's pretty ambitious, but not at all inconceivable. We're close enough to being able to achieve it that we should hold up this ideal goal so we know the right direction as we build the pieces.

declancostello• 15 years ago

the video linked above does show the view from the web app part of Khan academy which has a map showing the progression from one topic to the next.

As far as I could see each set of questions allows you to watch associated videos and also links to the prerequisites.

I'll go and investigate :) brb

wallflower• 15 years ago

> The real future of education is a computerized personal tutor

In Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age", a plot device (not central), is The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. It is an adaptive AI tutor. To realize TYLIP, hard AI problems will need to be solved. Yet, it is possible the iPad is a big step towards a simpler Primer.

"TYLIP is...a book that is powered by a computer so advanced it’s almost magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches you morals, ethics, even self-defence. ‘Diamond Age’ is a very entertaining read, mainly because of the TYLIP."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age

http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-prime...

Jach2• 15 years ago

> As an autodidact ... if there is a curriculum, it's not obvious.

Shouldn't you be used to not having a curriculum (and indeed be thriving) if you're really an autodidact?

The structure seems obvious to me. Videos are put in sequences by subject, with pre-requisites coming first. In his physics and finance sequences he frequently calls out a potential video you should watch first to better understand the current concept, otherwise if you know it then it will just trigger the memory anyway. My value from Khan Academy has been from looking at the videos, seeing which ones I already know, and watching the ones I don't know or need review on. I don't need any curriculum; my curriculum is whatever I want or need to learn at the time.

Maybe you want to call the organization of categories unorganized, but if you watch the videos in order of the mega-sequences it's pretty straightforward that it's a similar path you'd find in a textbook. (You don't read chapters of things you already know do you?)

I'll agree with you that Clippy is the future for self-learning. First we need general AI though. (Although Google's simple search is pretty good right now.)

dwc4• 15 years ago

As an autodidact interested in far more than I can learn in my lifetime I'm always on the lookout for the easiest path to learning. After struggling to find an acceptably easy path with Khan I dug up some alternate videos that gave me more direction. Am I really an autodidact? It just seemed the most concise word for my self-driven learning. If I don't fit the definition then I should go find a new word. :)

> Clippy

Ha ha! Yes. But I don't think we need defer this until we have strong, general AI. There are steps that can be taken now, with more coming in the near future. None of these will be "the" solution, but they'll be way ahead of where we are now.

Example: currently schools have "remedial" programs in various subjects. A student having trouble with math is assigned to the remedial math program, but not other remedial programs. Ok, now extend that idea by making it more fine-grained, both by topic and proficiency. Algebra would have several areas, each with separate proficiency levels. Design curricula for each area/proficiency, and a reasonable assessment method for placement. Collect feedback on time taken and right/wrong to improve curricula and assessment. No AI, but way better than what we have. It's not at all practical in classrooms, but it's very practical on computers if it's done on a large enough scale to warrant the cost of producing such a system.

And thanks to you and others, I will probably revisit Khan Academy soon.

kamens3• 15 years ago

Completely agreed (on Khan Academy team).

If you check out the video from that article (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5k98GV7po), you'll see a lot of the strides we're making in the areas of individual assessment (mathematics only at the moment), guidance (full breakdown of hints for every problem we dynamically generate), alternate explanations where comprehension lacks (list of all relevant videos next to every problem the student encounters), encouragement (badges and other game mechanics), and more.

As you said: it's ambitious, and we're far from the end. But we're making progress every day and seeing extremely positive reactions in all the teachers and students from our pilot programs.

dwc4• 15 years ago

I do think the videos are excellent, and I'm very encouraged that you're in the process of addressing these other things. If you keep the same commitment to quality that you've done so far then you'll do just fine.

Edit: I just watched the video and I am seriously impressed. This is the right direction. I will be trying this out soon.

cwb• 15 years ago

Indeed. Video lectures can be helpful -- in particular for mechanics and manipulation -- but no reason to be overly excited (there was great hope for educational use of TV in its early days, unless I'm mistaken). A good book is usually more effective/efficient if you have patience to actually study it.

What few people seem to get is that we don't need to fix education, we need to fix learning. And for that, we need exercises (as any mathematician would tell you; also see deliberate practice). It turns out digital exercises afford a range of interesting opportunities (both the video and article highlight several) for making learning more effective.

Interfaces can change relatively easily so there'll be a bunch of experiments. The exercise model is harder. And more interesting. (I've been trying to figure that out for a while now and discovered a bunch of local minima.) I'm very curious to see how this exercise model works out -- it seems promising from what I can tell.

Regardless of how this works out (not to say I think it won't), this development will raise the bar and the expectations -- both of which has been too low for too long. That is incredibly valuable.

elai• 15 years ago

Khan tends to follow one textbook from front to back while he goes through the videos in a linear order. The order that khan has his videos listed is the order your supposed to follow in a traditional course. They're small enough so you can go back and brush up on one topic or the next. Each subject topic is one full course, or one that is split into several (like calculus 1, 2 and 3). He has computerized tests for a small amount of topics, and he fills out more and more courses as time goes on. Khan academy is a work in progress.

patrickod• 15 years ago

The one thing the Khan academy and other such resources is the inspiration, personal engagement, guidance and other things that teachers and tutors do. Granted for some people these things have little bearing on their learning I think that for the majority of students they can make all the difference. No doubt people here have found their interest in a subject at school or college diminished due to a bad teacher or vice-versa

jasonrr• 15 years ago

The Khan Academy is not seeking to replace teachers/coaches/tutors. The good ones will take advantage of what resources like the KA have to offer. On the other hand, a bad teacher has the ability to damage a student's ability and desire to learn for years.

There is a chance that the Khan Academy could make the world bad-teacher proof by giving students a resource with high quality guided instruction that includes mechanisms to keep them motivated, and I think that is nearly equally important.

(disclosure: KA Designer)

rick_2047• 15 years ago

I wonder if Khan Academy takes in external videos (other wise making something functional with google sites is fine with me but wouldn't get nearly as much traction). I have 10min long videos explaining Digital electronics basics. My tech went one step backwards from khan, I just used pen-paper and one webcame. :) Looking into getting my videos reviewed by them, otherwise my deadline would be.... April 1st. (just thought that up now, but people say its good to have a deadline).

mkramlich• 15 years ago

Always bet on talent. Talent is rare and the main bottleneck in most human enterprises. Salman Khan is a great talent with a very rare combo of qualities.

theklub• 15 years ago

The Future of Education is going to be game oriented, getting kids to watch boring videos will be very hard.

paulitex• 15 years ago

I strongly suspect you didn't watch the youtube video in the article... Game mechanics are one of the KA's system's biggest features.

asdkl234890• 15 years ago

Lets hope so. While higher education in itself is valuable, the prices most often being asked for it are not exactly worth paying.

pixcavator• 15 years ago

I am afraid they lack the background to pull off "the future of education", certainly not on the college level. Sorry for being harsh.

badwetter• 15 years ago

Education should be a basic human right!

nerfhammer• 15 years ago

Khan Academy has poked a hole in my heart that needs to be filled: A computer science curriculum

andresmh• 15 years ago

I have not RTFA but equating content delivery with education seems risky. Yes, Khan Academy videos are engaging and often better than getting content from books, but education is much more than content. Education is also about building, creating, interacting, sharing.

Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education

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