Khan Academy

                                                            

A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

What an amazing, world-changing way to use technology to better the human race. Many elementary schools are piloting Khan Academy into their curriculum. What has resulted is class-flipping, where the students do the classwork at home and the homework at school. Though some teachers find this method "insulting", other teachers, professionals, and educators find this program and its tools to be helpful in the classroom. Such tools to track classroom data allow teachers to monitor their students' progress in real time. For instance, they can see which modules/problems/exercises students completed and how well they did. It also shows them the seconds it took for them to complete it. So, as some teachers might believe that their role as a lecturer is crucial to their identity and efficiency as a well-respected and valued teacher, other teachers are saying that this method allows them to stop assuming that all students are mimicking the few that are having trouble. These teachers then say that they don't have to stop class to teach or reteach a concept, but rather they can hone in on the few that are having difficulties. The advantage of the videos provided on Khan Academy are only 10 minutes long is that a teacher, nor a student, has to find the exact lesson they need to learn among a load of information. The 10 minute divisions allow for a fine-focus precision towards attacking problem areas in comprehension.  


Looking in the list of topics to watch a video, I can't find English. It jumps from Differential Equations to Finance. I wonder, why isn't there English language lessons? Could it be implemented? How would it be implemented through Khan-like videos? In ESL settings, is it realistic for teachers to  teach lessons about writing, grammar, or speaking in a video and use the classroom as an arena for practice? Can we also create a knowledge map about the English language? What are the limitations? What are the advantages? and, When can we start working on this?