Think of all of the years of education in the world where the same teaching style has been put in place. Typically kids sit in a classroom, and a teacher teaches about a certain subject. Then at the end of the week there is a test to make sure the subject has been learned. The odds of each kid learning at the same pace are slim to none. Sure there are stopgaps put in place to help those that can’t grasp a subject, but is it really enough? I for one know I didn’t properly learn certain subjects when I was in school. So what is available out there today to help a kid out?
Khan Academy
Enter Salman Khan. A graduate from MIT three times over Salman was bound for greater things than working as an analyst for hedge fund. He found this out in 2004 while doing long distance tutoring for his cousins via the Internet. Salman knew there had to be a better way to teach the kids of the world, and he knew the internet would play an important role.
Salman quit his job and started the Khanacademy.org in 2009 and has never looked back. Today you can find over 3,000 lesson videos that have been viewed over 131 million times. Video lessons are created for easy learning and are very well explained and visually represented during video playback. Youtube.com provides the backend hosting for the videos. Google has pledged $2 million dollars to create new videos, and convert lessons to the most popular languages in the world. Bill Gates has also pledged financing, and is a large supporter of the Khan Academy.
Here is a video of Salman Khan and Bill Gates
Khan Academy is a true jewel of the Internet. It is a not for profit organization and has rejected advertising on it’s website. When implemented into a school the teacher has a control panel to visually track each student. A parent can also have a dashboard to track their child’s progress, it truly is remarkable what Khan has done. The lack of Science and Math in Americas classrooms has really become evident in the last 50 years. When the countries of Slovenia and Cyprus can beat the US in Science scores you know there is something wrong. Let’s hope Kahn Academy helps close that gap for the kids of America and elsewhere.