Can anyone catch Khan Academy? The fate of the U in the YouTube era
July 23, 2012
Salman Khan (credit: Khan Academy)
Traditional American universities are suddenly running scared of YouTube, Xconomy reports, along with Vimeo, 5min, iTunes U, TED and the Internet Archive.
Without YouTube, Sal Khan and Khan Academy could never have reached his 4 million unique viewers a month with their 3,200 videos, viewed 170 million times.
Internet video sharing technology means that talented people from outside the education establishment can make and publish free educational videos that are sometimes just as compelling as — or more than —- what’s on offer inside university classrooms.
Universities are scrambling to respond: this spring’s unveiling of edX, a joint online-education venture between Harvard and MIT, is just one example. But even as universities rush to put their lectures on the net, they’re vying with an explosion of new online learning resources like Coursera, Dabble, Skillshare, Udemy, and Udacity. Most are free, and most revolve around video.
Khan Academy is expanding into the “casual learning” market: semi-professionally-shot videos starring enthusiastic domain experts who want to share a bit of their knowledge in an entertaining way, such as Smarthistory and Doodling in Math Class — (like the ones on Fibonacci numbers) both recently absorbed by Khan Academy.
There are plenty of other people making great, free educational videos on YouTube, like Minute Physics, the best explanation of how the Higgs field imparts mass.
Comments (11)
by jr
Websites like Khan or MathTV.com can really benefit those who may not absorb as much information in a traditional classroom setting.
by 4science
@Jr – Hey, that’s me! Lol, my only regret is I was born about 32 years too soon. But then I wouldn’t have my awesome family so I guess it’s alright. Honestly though, people would always tell me they think I’m super smart but I never “felt” smart. I always felt like learning was a struggle in a traditional classroom. It was like a whole lot of noise in my head just being with all those people in class. What is available now is my dream.
by Gorden Russell
I clicked on Khan Academy and found a tab for “Cosmology and Astronomy.” Clicking on that lead to a really cool lecture on cephied variables. I always wondered how stars could blink from dim to bright, and now I know.
by Daniel
This is what will do an end run around the abysmal failure of state run, public education of the past 60 years.
by Ron Abate
Public education is not an “abysmal failure.” The real failure has been our inability to change the value system of inner city youth.
by Mark
I would have to agree with Ron on this one. Public education has been a fantastic boon to our economy and society as a whole. It could be better but much of what we get out of education and where the system goes is defined by our culture.
Some changes to that system are now possible such as learning at home then discussing and seeking answers to questions in class which drastically increases the amount of time teachers have to interact 1 on 1 with students.
Do you have any specific reasons to believe it was a failure? I am interested in hearing contradicting viewpoints.
by dave
The technology disruption is centered on the preposterously overpriced institutions of higher learning, not to public K-12 schools (which are already perceived as “free” to most citizens, though they are anything but). Get ready for massive “restructuring” among colleges and universities.
by GatorALLin
Improving the quality of free education over the internet is one of the coolest things that has happened in the last few years and I think will be one of the main things that is increasing at an ever increasing pace. I hope that in the end the very best ways to teach a subject, from the very best teachers in the world are given a chance to float to the top and thus maximize the value of these online tools. Maybe there are several different learning styles that each class could be done in and only one of them is best for me….. so that you can personalize your learning with your most efficient learning styles. The title of this report had me thinking first about the book Outliers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book) and wonder if they have their 10,000 hours in first and thus leading the way (and for a long time). I hope many others will at least try and catch up…. to tools with technology sure give others that chance. Thank You to Salman Khan for all that you have done thus far and I am sure this is only the tip of an empowering iceberg of knowledge your dropping on the world.
by Gorden Russell
Thanks for that link to the Outliers article, GatorALLin. It was very instructional. Now if a generation of inner city kids spend four hours a day, five days a week, for ten years studying at the Khan Academy, we will harvast a vast generation of new intellectuals.
by de Broglie
Ultimately the courses on Coursera come from universities. The university will not be entirely repaced; the medium that one experiences the course will just be digital.
by DCWhatthe
Establishment fears about competing, cheaper & more efficient technologies – evidence that something much better is evolving, and will be here soon.