I am excited by any kind of educational technology that (a) individualizes a child's education, (b) maximizes teacher resources, and (c) saves schools money that they can deploy to other uses. Imagine my delight when I found an article in last weekend's Wall Street Journal about one entrepreneur who accidentally launched a fabulous way to teach math and other topics through YouTube videos.
Hopefully this link will work, but since WSJ is a paid subscription, it might not - Turning the Classroom Upside Down. Here's a quick summary: Salman Khan noticed that his 12 year old niece - a smart, engaged girl - was struggling in her 7th grade math class and was, in fact, tracked in a slower class. Because Khan was in Boston and Nadia in New Orleans, they started with remote, 30 minute tutorials via Yahoo Doodle. Soon, interest from other students inspired Kahn to create YouTube tutorials that Nadia and the other students could access on-demand.
Surprisingly, Nadia and the others preferred the recorded sessions over the live sessions. The reason is that they could digest the material at their own pace - pause and rewind to go over a tricky point, tackle new topics without being judged.
Soon, Khan realized that teachers were using his videos to shake up the typical learning environment in schools. Teachers would assign their students to watch the videos at home, and then used class time to do "homework" - the problem sets that traditionally are done at home, by the student alone. Using this model, though, allows each student to learn at his or her own speed - and better master the material - all while in the same classroom, with the same student-teacher ratio. As Khan said in the WSJ article, "..when students work at their own pace, the need for tracking and labeling goes away. Given the time and personal instruction needed to master core topics, supposedly slower students are often able to speed ahead. Within weeks, they look 'advanced'." Sounds like a potential way around the disability label problem, non? Are you Disabled Enough?
In 2008, Khan formalized this program into the Khan Academy. Check out their website here: Khan Academy. There are now 2,200 videos covering topics from physics to calculus, and are translated into more than 10 languages - all free of charge. The site offers parents and teachers the ability to see how individual students are progressing; they could then tailor live instruction to hit the areas in which a student is weakest. (And, this type of data also suggests that teacher effectiveness could be measured concretely - using a metric OTHER than standardized test scores).
I just watched some of the "Natural Selection" video, and, while I was initially struck by how much I have forgotten from high school biology, I was so excited by the resources on this site. But, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I did not see a heck of lot of awareness of accessibility issues. The lectures could really benefit from captioning. And what about someone trying to use a screen reader?
If this - or this type of technology - gets rolled out in more schools, then school will have to ensure that all students - including students with IEPs - can access the technology. It's doable, but better to consider these issues sooner rather than later.
This is an awesome resource.
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