LE02

A phenomenon called Khan Academy


Let us first introduce it to those who have been unaware of one of the most potent knowledge wave in the recent world. When Mandi Sir suggested we write something about the Khan Academy, then I had no idea what it is about. But as I learned about it, I realized what I was missing due to ignorance.

The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization which was created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a triple degree holder from MIT and  an MBA from Harvard Business School.
But why would anyone do that? What is the motive or the idea behind it?
Before I answer, lets take a look at the Academy's vision and mission.

"A free world-class education for anyone anywhere."

This explains it all. The endeavor is simple, educate all, whosoever wants to learn shall get it, no matter which country you live in, what school or class you go, you just need to have a drive to learn, that's all.

The website supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures of length about 10 mins on an average via video tutorials stored on there and even on their YouTube channel. Here, we can find them teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics and microeconomics, and computer science.

In their own words, it's a global classroom where one can join millions of students and education enthusiasts and learn. Yet, it is as local as a teacher sitting nest to you, helping you solve maths sums or teaching you ancient history i.e. just anything under the sun. This is the beautiful part, it doesn't try to bind you, rather, the learning methodology being applied here excites you to read, makes learning interesting, thereby setting you free. 

The constant evolution that the education process at the Academy has been undergoing has churned out even more benefits for learners like being able to see your stats, your coverage of the Knowledge map, classroom performance data and badges that motivate students to go to the next higher level.

The man who is re-writing the rules
 of education

It is a wonderful, yet so simple, concept that echoes 'Learning knows no bounds'. Salman Khan, who was earlier working as a hedge fund manager, has come out with an idea that has the potential to change the world. The basics as mooted by Salman are:

-  people find watching a guy do a problem [while] thinking out loud more valuable than daunting

- exercises that are based on skill level and performance

- using the videos as tools of classroom teaching and then homework should be done by students in the presence of teacher for explanation and support

No wonder, that this venture has received aids worth millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google. In 2010, Google announced it would give the Khan Academy $2 million for creating more courses and for translating the core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages, as part of their Project 10^100. There goes down the final barrier of language.