It looks like the Khan Academy will have an iPad app coming pretty soon (see below), and this development seems to be going apace with the understandable and pretty describable backlash directed toward Mr. Khan.
Most of the negative arguments I have seen are based upon such solid arguments as:
- This is a terrible idea, since Salman Khan has gained support from Bill Gates
- This whole idea is backed by powers which have dark intentions which we aren’t aware of (i.e. the crypto-fascist argument)
- Since the academy is moving into coverage of history now, there are many progressive advocates of post-modern history who are presenting yet another knee-jerk criticism of something which they haven’t seen…
- And so on…
As far as I know, the Khan Academy has not been mandated as a compulsory set of videos for all students to watch…anywhere.
Some people out there need to calm down (just a little), and those with political and doctrinal axes to grind should present valid counter arguments, instead of snark, and talking points…
The idea of a flipped classroom has a lot of potential value; even if it radically changes how teachers help students to learn (I didn’t say ‘teach’). The Khan Academy may be the foremost example of content to allow for this sort of education, but it is not the only one.
Khan Academy iPad app screenshots show progress
http://i.tuaw.com/2011/07/13/khan-academy-ipad-app-screenshots-show-progress
The Khan Academy is an online non-profit organization whose goal is to provide a "free world-class education to anyone anywhere." Think of it as TED for everyone, except Khan’s videos, resources, and lesson plans can actually help you be one of the TED speakers one day. Currently the Khan Academy is only accessible through a browser, but, John Resig, Dean of Open Source and head of JavaScript development at the non-profit, has shown off a few alpha screenshots of the upcoming Khan Academy iPad app, and it looks awesome.
Initially the 1.0 version of the iPad app will allow video navigation and viewing, interactive transcripts, and offline support. However, future versions of the iPad app will allow for in-app exercises. No word yet on a release date for the app, but combining the Khan Academy with the iPad could prove to be a truly disruptive combination of technologies for traditional education. And especially with kids coming out of US colleges with upwards of $150,000 in student debt, perhaps our more traditional education models need to be disrupted.
Khan Academy + Chromebook = The Experiment is Born
http://blendmylearning.com/2011/06/23/khan-academy-chromebook-the-experiment-is-born
Our first experiment was to put the much talked about Khan Academy to the test. By now, most everyone has played with Khan, some folks have tried it in schools, and lots of students are getting homework help. But we wanted to see what would happen if we really used Khan Academy, displaced the teacher from the front of the class, and gave the reins over to students to determine content and pacing.
Enter Google and the Chromebooks
One of the drawbacks we all saw with Khan was that it required 1-to-1 computing to really disrupt the classroom. Sure teachers could project Sal’s videos to the whole class, but the real power came through reshaping the role of the teacher and student. As we were trying to launch the experiment, we met up with some great folks at Google who were preparing to launch the new Chromebooks (see future posts for more details). The Google team loved the spirit of experimentation and prototyping that we pitched and joined the experiment to see how Chromebooks themselves could affect teaching and learning. The Googlers made some magic happen, and we got a class set of laptops to make the experiment a reality.
Everyone’s aflutter about Salman Khan
http://bigthink.com/ideas/38750
Salman Khan and his Khan Academy evoke strong feelings. Although Khan has many influential supporters, his detractors are beginning to emerge… [Side note: We are going to have a FUN webinar on June 15!]
Yesterday David Clemens wrote at the National Academy of Scholars web site that
Instead of the Internet democratizing information, it can fill our heads with whatever its algorithms decide our heads should be filled with. Just as unnerving, Internet distribution of Mr. Khan’s videos can fill everyone’s heads with the same information in the same way, and that is just what he would like it to do. Mr. Khan describes his mission as being too “deliver a world-class education to anyone anywhere . . .” and to have his videos become the “operating system” of the classroom with the teacher reduced to “coach.” It could happen. He has appeared on CNN, PBS, NPR, and Charlie Rose. Students embrace Mr. Khan; Mr. Gates embraces Mr. Khan. Imagine the consequences if his videos did become the DOS or Windows of education: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of young minds, all fed by Mr. Khan’s fizzy version of history. Not only would all students absorb the same value judgments, goofy comments, and cultural relativism, they would also conclude that Mr. Khan’s factoids constitute knowledge of history.
Khan left a response over at Hacker News, which was discussing Clemens’ piece. Here’s a portion:
I don’t see how guys making digestible videos that inform and encourage skepticism (on YouTube where anyone else can do the same) are more dangerous than state-mandated text books. I don’t see how lectures that are open for the world to scrutinize (and comment about on YouTube and our site) are more dangerous than a lone teacher or professor who can say whatever they like to their classrooms with no one there to correct or dispute them.
Finally, there is nothing I would like to see more than other teachers / professors / experts adding their voice to the mix. Rather than wasting energy commenting on other people’s work with pseudo-intellectual babble, why don’t they produce their own videos and post them on YouTube? If someone can produce 20 videos that seem decent and want to do more as part of the Khan Academy, we’ll point our audience at them. If our students respond, we’ll figure out a way that they can potentially make it a career.
