Slashdot Mirror
Khan Academy Delivers 100,000 Lectures Daily
eldavojohn writes "Working from the comfort of his home, Salman Khan has made available more than 1,500 mini-lectures to educate the world. Subjects range from math and physics to finance, biology, and current economics. Kahn Academy amounts to little more than a YouTube channel and one very devoted man. He is trying to provide education in the way he wished he had been taught. With more than 100,000 video views a day, the man is making a difference for many students. In his FAQ he explains how he knows he is being effective. What will probably ensure his popularity (and provide a legacy surpassing that of most highly paid educators) is that everything is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0. He only needs his time, a $200 Camtasia Recorder, an $80 Wacom Bamboo Tablet, and a free copy of SmoothDraw3. While the lecturing may not be quite up to the Feynman level, it's a great augmenter for advanced learners, and a lifeline for those without much access to learning resources."
...can we get this guy to take a few weeks out of his regular schedule to please teach the fundamentals surrounding iPhone development so the tidal wave of bone head questions on the dev forums can be brought down...just a little...thanks.
I was between jobs and attened a community college for a year. For the most part, what a waste of time. I found any "Dummies" or "Learn xxxx in 24 hours" or "Learn xxx in 30 days" book better than the textbooks the college used. It seems like they had a plan
1. Collect a tuition
2. Sell you a "text book"
3. The textbook is a bit of reading, then homework and a test.
4. The instructor was there to a) Repeat in Class what was in the book b) answer questions for the slower students about homework assignments c) grade homework.
5. Move at such a pace that after reading, writing, testing on a topic, in 2 weeks you could not remember what you had done.
6. Believe you had master of a topic even when you got 3 out of 10 questions wrong. (The guy who is wrong 30% of the time gets the same degree as the guy who is only wrong 2% of the time).
In my "vocational" CIS degree course work I had an instructor who only knew what Microsoft has told him to believe. And Instructor who said the book sucked but would not talk about anything that was NOT in the book. It was fustrating talking to a man with 30 years experience who would not tell me anything useful.
It was a total waste of time. I did not realize college was paying someone to verify I answered questiosn correctly to prove I read a chapter and a final test to prove I learned something. Maybe it is because I am 43 and not 19. But I KNOW if I have learned anything or not, I don't need 30 distracting questions for some to grade. I need to "apply" what I have leanred. Since I knew more than the instructors on many of the topics, and anytime I had a question they either did not know the answer to it, or dodged it, I was paying $75.00 a credit hour for a proctor to score my work not an instructor to teach me anything useful.
Examples:
10 weeks to learn how to install Windows Vista and set up printers and file sharing.
10 weeks to learn how to install Windows Server 2008 and set up DHCP, DNS, printers and file sharing
20 weeks to learn how to run Visual Dev Studio, and write a small application with variables, loops, subroutines and can open and read a text file.
I can lean more on any of these topics in 10 weeks of reading Slashdot than what I learned in class. I will never fear going up against a college graduate who graduated from the local community college.
I am all for anyone who will explain things the way I think and record it and put it up on Youtube. Especially since you can actualy email them anything you dont' follow or have a question about and there is a possibility or receiving some feedback.
vi +
There was a recent Indian movie which revolved around the name Khan. Its called 'My name is Khan'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Khan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188996/
And all Khans are not terrorists
Gopla
There was a recent Indian movie which revolved around the name Khan. Its called 'My name is Khan'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Khan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188996/
And all Khans are not terrorists
Gopla
On a slightly different note, I find it a little sad that slashdot contributors are able to correctly spell Nordic/Germanic names with umlauts and complex non-English vowels (immediate example: Piratbyrån), but screw up the spelling of a name as simple as Khan.
To be fair, we all (at least us geeks) tend to pay special attention to spelling when we see a non-English symbol in a name. Nonetheless, please do ask yourself if you are unconsciously trying to be Euro-centric. It helps to become more aware of popular names and cultures around the world, especially as we are so well connected in today's world, and because our world is truly become a multi-cultural place.
The correct way to say Khan is something like "Khaaah-n" (not "caan"). Most names and words in the Indian subcontinent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) requires you to speak from the stomach, which is quite different from the way Americans and some Europeans tend to speak. From what little I know, the family name "Khan" is mostly found in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, although it is quite common in India as well. Khans are also considered to be "Pathans" or "Pashtuns" - known to have a strong code of conduct, pride (in a good way), fierce, loyal, living life to the fullest, extremely hospitable, and also physically tall and strong (you will find a lot of them playing sports).
On a different note, hats off to what Salman Khan and what he is doing. He's actually quit a high paying job to devote his energy and attention full-time to follow his passion. The world definitely needs more people like him.