Khan Academy

The delightful and intelligent Salman Khan, the creative mind behind “Khan Academy,” has become a fairly powerful force in some classrooms. Working as a hedge-fund analyst (and yes, I had to look up that job), Khan evidently generated his first Youtube videos for his cousins, to sort of supplement their learning as he was tutoring them remotely. He was surprised when they told him that they really preferred the videos over listening to him in person, and was more surprised when other people—YouTube viewers—started making comments about how well they understood new concepts simply from watching his videos. For them, it was easier to view these clips online and in the privacy of their own home. Teachers said they were using it in classrooms, in place of homework. The feedback he (Khan) was getting for his videos prompted him to create Khan Academy, the online video experience. The general idea now? To create a global classroom.

What is great about it? You can pause, rewind, watch it again at a later time, and—and this is key—if you fall asleep, your teacher isn’t there to tap you on the back or smack a ruler on your desk. That is, you can take care of your own learning in your own way. Maybe you have to watch it ten times, but at least you can still get it without having to ask questions (which might embarrass a student). You don’t have to put on a face and pretend that you understand it all.
The other benefit? Khan suggests that it can be used to “humanize” the classroom. To make it so that the students watch the lectures at home (and can watch it multiple times) and then will get to spend the class time working together, rather than having to work alone and silently.
Could Khan Academy do something for me for language arts???

Main problem? Computer access AND technology problems! One of the complaints that I have heard from teachers in my practicum school is that the technology is lagging and that when there is a problem, it takes too long to fix. “We need a technology person!” they exclaim. When the teachers are using computers that are running on a system that is 10 years old, you probably are not going to see an abundance of other computers that are running well enough to maintain a computerized classroom experience. But can you get around that? Somewhat—at least at the high school level. If a teacher were to assign the Khan Academy videos as homework, then class time (as he suggested) could be centered around focusing on one-on-one instruction. The likelihood that students at a low-income middle school will be able to access computers is much lower, however, than the likelihood around any high school (even a low-income one) because mobility is greatly increased in the upper grades (due to relaxation of parental rules and students reaching the legal age to drive).

I believe I suddenly just realized that Khan is talking about something that in Language Arts is called the workshop model. Well, more like a modified workshop model.