EPTKhan Academy - Page 2
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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Aerisky
United States12129 Posts
On September 04 2012 11:41 sam!zdat wrote: We're in the early stages of a revolution in the way education works. People are excited because Khan Academy seems very new and radical, even though it is not up to the quality of what we are really looking for. True, with the google grant and all that, this could be the beginning of a revolution in education. | ||
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Zaranth
United States345 Posts
For myself, I was terrible at math in college - I got C's in calc 1 and 2. If I needed to suddenly remember how to do calculus, I could go watch these videos and re-teach myself (and probably actually understand) this time around. Also, if you watch Khan's TED talk, here, he really envisions a completely different style of teaching in the future, which I think is really cool and totally spot on. | ||
micronesia
United States24799 Posts
On September 05 2012 00:56 Zaranth wrote: I think there are a few perks to the idea of the Khan Academy. First, is allows someone to learn at their own pace and at their own time. Second, the videos can be re-watched, paused, etc (unlike a real-time lecture). Third, someone can use these videos without shame because no one else has to know. For myself, I was terrible at math in college - I got C's in calc 1 and 2. If I needed to suddenly remember how to do calculus, I could go watch these videos and re-teach myself (and probably actually understand) this time around. Also, if you watch Khan's TED talk, here, he really envisions a completely different style of teaching in the future, which I think is really cool and totally spot on. Thanks for linking to the video.... a few very cool things here. However, it mostly falls back on the quality of the actual videos, which I am concerned about. Most of all, the approach is very incompatible with certain educational philosophies (for example constructivists) which can potentially be very damaging if this new form of educating students really takes hold. In some cases this is still way better than the current alternatives, though. | ||
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Recognizable
Netherlands1552 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
I hated when I felt like this in class because lectures went too fast and you didn't want to be that guy stopping the teacher every two minutes in a 100 person class to not get left behind in lecture. God forbid you zoned out. High school was so much better. There was this girl who always asked my physics teacher to stop and repeat concepts. She often chewed gum and texted, but she really wanted to learn and the teacher had the freedom to answer her. Back to University. After class whenever I go to talk to the professor, he'll have run off or ten people will be in front of me. TA's won't fucking reply to your questions till the week of or during the TA session and even during the session you get 4 minutes with them when you need fucking 30. Video lectures solved the problem of zoning out in lecture because you could go back and watch sections again. But you no longer even had the option of asking the teacher questions with this method. I'm really jealous of the new generation. They'll get access to personalized education and hopefully tools to combat our horrible education system, and they'll be able to start fresh with something tens of thousands of times better. I like the ted talk. He mentions that he guarantees mastery. You can't just get a 60% and move on. Build on calc before you understand all of algebra. This is pretty cool. I didn't know khan was a comprehensive education system for at least math. | ||
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Deleted User 255289
281 Posts
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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hypercube
Hungary2735 Posts
On September 05 2012 02:57 micronesia wrote: Thanks for linking to the video.... a few very cool things here. However, it mostly falls back on the quality of the actual videos, which I am concerned about. Most of all, the approach is very incompatible with certain educational philosophies (for example constructivists) which can potentially be very damaging if this new form of educating students really takes hold. In some cases this is still way better than the current alternatives, though. What new form? This lecture/practice style has been the norm for a long time in math education. Of course we would all like to see a more exploration based approach. It's not Khan's approach per se that's incompatible with constructivism but standards/testing based education as a whole. edit: What Khan Academy does is the same old paradigm in a massively improved format. Having kids patch up their weaknesses before they move on is huge. Ideally you'd want them to understand the material in their own way, but just knowing that your students understand the prerequisits would be a huge improvement for most math teachers. | ||
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Azera
3800 Posts
Some men just want to watch the world learn. | ||
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micronesia
United States24799 Posts
On September 05 2012 21:09 hypercube wrote: What new form? This lecture/practice style has been the norm for a long time in math education. Of course we would all like to see a more exploration based approach. It's not Khan's approach per se that's incompatible with constructivism but standards/testing based education as a whole. edit: What Khan Academy does is the same old paradigm in a massively improved format. Having kids patch up their weaknesses before they move on is huge. Ideally you'd want them to understand the material in their own way, but just knowing that your students understand the prerequisits would be a huge improvement for most math teachers. Standards/testing based education is not necessarily incompatible with constructivism. In some math classrooms it is as you say, and in some it is standards based, there is much testing, but initially the material is taught in such a way as to allow students to figure it all out themselves by building on prior knowledge. On September 05 2012 21:19 Azera wrote: It's not that I think Khan Academy is a bad thing, just that I was confused why so many people think it's such a good thing.What's your main gripe with Khan Academy? Sure, the videos may not be of great quality. Sure, they aren't substitutes for actual classes in school. But to me, the most important thing about it is that it's free. There are lots of free learning resources on the internet that people as a whole don't care for which is why I wanted to ask how Khan Academy is different. | ||
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Recognizable
Netherlands1552 Posts
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Azera
3800 Posts
Salman Khan's alma mater include MIT and Harvard. There, you have reputation. His videos are easily found on YouTube should you google for the topics he has covered. There, you have ease of access. So now, you combine reputation and ease of access. People will go, "Oh! This guy knows his shit, so he can teach me well! Fuck hitting the books for the test tomorrow! I'll watch this!" They then trick themselves into thinking that they're actually learning something online when they're in reality just dicking around the web. But his reputation and ease of access is most probably why he's so popular. IMO he gave way to online course websites like Coursera (backed by Princeton and others) and edX (backed by Harvard, MIT, and others). | ||
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Azera
3800 Posts
On September 06 2012 00:11 Recognizable wrote: Could you link me to some of these free learning sources? https://www.coursera.org/ http://www.khanacademy.org/ https://www.edx.org/ | ||
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LunaSea
Luxembourg369 Posts
From what I know, I think it's the first time that online courses are actually integrated in a classroom. As a side note for the tech people on TL.net, the guy who created jQuery works at Khan academy ! | ||
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LunaSea
Luxembourg369 Posts
On September 06 2012 00:13 Azera wrote: https://www.coursera.org/ http://www.khanacademy.org/ https://www.edx.org/ There's http://www.udacity.com/ too. | ||
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obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
http://www.lynda.com/ Why split up the open source education community with edx and coursera? They're just going to be beaten by a third larger competitor if they want to compete with each other. Openclass from Pearson is in production. Question: When you learn something, how do you remember it. I learned C in University in first year but I am no longer comfortable writing programs with it. If someone asked me to program in C again I could probably pick it up quickly again. Udacity looks like it's meant to teach you general skills. Teach you how to learn rather than teach you a specific language. Like if you wanted to learn all the tricks to MySQL you'd read a manual and learn inner joins. If you just wanted a content management system you might just need simple inserts, select, updates, and deletes. You might never learn joins. | ||
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