Many blogs here at Online Learning Success have discussed online courses. What if you would like help with learning a specific topic, but don’t want to commit to a whole course? For instance, you want to know about square roots in mathematics. Or why World War One started. Or how plants make their own food by photosynthesis.
Enter Khan Academy.
In 2004, Salman (Sal) Khan began teaching mathematics to his cousins via the internet. A year or so later, Khan began posting his teachings as videos on YouTube so his cousins could watch them without Khan having to be online at the same time. Soon, other people discovered the videos. In 2008, he established Khan Academy as a non-profit entity.
Now, Khan Academy has thousands of videos available to watch on a wide range of subjects. The website is available in English, Spanish, French, and Brazilian Portuguese. Resources are being translated into more than 36 languages. Videos cover topics from kindergarten maths and basic English right up to SAT (USA college admission test) preparation and college level subjects.
There are also practice questions and activities, and discussions are available below each video. Students can comment or ask and answer questions. You can learn on your PC or mobile device. The mobile app allows you to download videos to watch offline.
Khan Academy is not a MOOC provider
Why is Khan Academy not considered a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) provider? Rather than being set up as individual courses, the videos are arranged by subject. Students can choose what to explore and work at their own pace. The emphasis is on improving knowledge and skill, rather than on finishing any particular series of videos.
Khan Academy employs specialists in various fields. Although most videos are produced in-house, some are made by its partners. Partner entities include NASA, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Disney-owned animation company Pixar. These and other partners have added videos and exercises to the site. Although I have no desire to learn animation, I was delighted to find Pixar’s modules on storytelling and characterization. Interesting exercises are included along with videos on many topics. Students are able to share their answers in the discussions, or keep them private in their own notebook or electronic documents.
Khan Academy’s Mission Statement
Here is Khan Academy’s mission statement: “Our mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere.” You will not find advertisements on the site. As a non-profit organisation, Khan Academy relies on donations, volunteers, and sponsorship to help create more videos, problem sets and virtual badges. Donations are encouraged, but anyone can join and learn for free. Substantial donors to Khan Academy include Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but the academy welcomes donations of any size.
You can join as a learner, teacher or parent. Personalize your learner account with an avatar and keep track of your progress. When you choose subject areas for your dashboard, it is easy to track your progress. The Academy recommends that you choose four or five subject areas, but you can look at other topics whenever you like.
Badges
Badges are awarded for many achievements: watching 15 minutes of videos on individual topics; completing problem sets; commenting on videos; participating in activities for five consecutive days; or a range of other options. I earned about 30 badges while researching Khan Academy and writing this blog post.
Unlike the major MOOC providers, who forbid or discourage children under 13 from having accounts, Khan Academy encourages teachers (coaches) and parents to set up accounts for their children. The parents and teachers control the accounts and can keep track of students’ progress. Most videos are suitable for child learners, with many subjects starting right at the basics. Non-native English speakers can learn from the language and grammar videos.
If you have any young friends or relatives who are struggling at school, particularly in mathematics, Khan Academy might be the answer.
In 2016, entrepreneur Evan Carmichael created a video titled Salman Khan’s Top 10 Rules For Success, using exerpts from some of Sal Khan’s speeches.
A Solid Knowledge Base
At first, some educators dismissed Khan Academy because the founder does not have teaching qualifications and occasional errors have been spotted in some of the videos. Khan, who holds two Bachelor of Science degrees (in electrical engineering and computer science, and mathematics) and a Master of Science degree from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) as well as a Master of Business Administration from Harvard, responded to these criticisms by hiring experts in relevant fields and cleaning up the videos. In 2012, Time magazine named Salman Khan in their annual list of 100 most influential people.
Khan Academy states that millions of students log on every day and learn at their own pace. Its videos have been watched more than a billion times.
I even received an email with a link to a birthday probability video on my last birthday.
Perhaps Khan Academy’s founder Sal Khan’s philosophy can be summed up in this Ted Talk video where he discusses the value of mastering one topic before going onto the next. He tells us that many people struggle with mathematics simply because they have gaps in their knowledge. His aim when establishing Khan Academy was to plug those gaps so students can go on to more advanced areas with a solid knowledge base.
A Final Thought
Online courses are an excellent way to learn, but there are other resources as well. Khan Academy is another way to augment your education and increase your knowledge.
By Pat Bowden, published March 6, 2018.
I’ll have to check it out!
It’s definitely worth a look.
I discovered Khan back around 2012 after seeing an interview with Sal on a tv newsmagazine show. Math has always been my bête noire (if you’re curious, search for my “Princess SohCahToa” post), so I tried it. At the time it was a simpler system than it is now, and much smaller. I ended up going through the whole thing over the course of a few months.
Unfortunately, because of the setup, it tends to encourage me to “get the right answer” rather than to understand what I’m doing, so I didn’t really come away with a lot of understanding. It did motivate me to explore math, so when I discovered moocs shortly after, I jumped in to Ohio State’s Calc 1 course – a terrific experience that taught me mathematicians can be funny. That lead to Keith Devlin’s Mathematical Thinking mooc, which completely changed how I view math and learning math (sadly, on the new platform it’s a shell of what it was).
I still use Khan for individual skills when something comes up. I still remember a calc lecture that had the line, “then we do partial fraction decomposition” and I had no idea what that was; Khan was very helpful. Right now, I’m running through the algebra and geometry sections. Every day I do some math, even if only 5 minutes; for a long time I used AOPS’s Alcumus system, but after over 2 years I got a bit frustrated with that so I switched. I’ve also taken a quick look at some of the chem and bio vids, though there are other resources I prefer. But there’s no doubt, it’s a great reference resource to have. Very much like a dictionary: you won’t learn how to read from Merriam Webster, but if you need to know what “elucidate” means, there’s nothing better.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Karen!