Khan Academy: A Case for E-Learning in Web 2.0

I haven’t taken a math course since freshman year of college---and I nearly failed that one. Only a surprising loophole in procedure and a week of cramming for the hardest final of my life saved me from having to take Algebra 3 two semesters in a row. However, I’m running through a video about statistics right now. I’ve got it paused so I can write this in fact. What happened to me? When did I not only become a numbers man, but actually enjoy thinking about the probability of lightning striking me versus winning the Oklahoma State Lottery?

Khan Academy.

Unless you lived under a cave (yes, under since even caves can get wireless signals these days), I’ll recap this internet success story. Khan Academy started out as a couple of mathematics videos by Salman Khan. After an endorsement from Bill Gates, who uses it to teach his own children off of the website, Khan Academy as quickly grown into a living example of how e-learning could seriously compete with public education. There’s a rebellious streak in me that imagines thousands of parents dropping public in favor of homeschooling youths with direct tutelage from Salman Khan’s brilliant videos. But, videos have been down before, what’s the difference?

Stop and Start

Most videos you run into on youtube.com are meant to be played from minute 0 to minute 1-credits. I’ve used youtube in the classroom, but rarely much farther than how teachers of old used the TV and VCR to let kids watch documentaries on nature or famous events. Khan Academy’s videos are meant to be stopped, restarted, and played in the middle. At one point, in a technology class, we stopped a video and used a smartboard to etch our own arithmetic on the screen (the first amazing idea I ever saw for smartboards, the one I thought “this is exactly what this technology is for”).

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Videos and clever narration are one thing, but Khan also supplies practice to each of his courses. For instance, going through the basic addition practice gives simple addition problems. However, what’s different is the level of extrinsic goals found on a single page. First, there’s the smiley faces and frownies given to right or wrong questions respectively. But KhanAcademy.com also uses a streak system where students can see how many questions they answered correctly in a row. If a student gets a certain number correct, they’re labeled as proficient and given a choice to go to a new subject.

The Future

It’s a wonderful place. Imagine a place like facebook or a MMO, but with students wanting to answer as many questions as possible to attain trophies and rewards. This is still based on extrinsic goal structures (basically wanting to out-do everyone else), but it creates a competitive environment that might be beneficial to the both the overachiever and average student. Average students get the help they need through repetition, viewing simple instruction videos, and social pressure. Overachievers are able to speed ahead to what actually challenges them rather than wait for everyone else.