BitTorrent and Khan Academy To Distribute Education

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BitTorrent and Khan Academy To Distribute Education

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 11, 2011 @08:18AM from the racing-to-zero-cost-education dept.

drDugan writes "BitTorrent, Inc. announced this morning that they have launched a partnership with the Khan Academy to distribute open education videos. They launched with more than 2,000 videos, covering high school and college level curriculum, across science, math, history, finance and test prep. All of the videos are free to download and open licensed with Creative Commons."

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FIRST! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-11 08:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

KHAAAAAAN!
1. Re:FIRST! by fishexe · 2011-02-11 08:29 · Score: 2
  
  KHAAAAAAN!
  From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For trolling, not for all that other stuff.
  
  --
  "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
2. Re:FIRST! by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2011-02-11 08:39 · Score: 2
  
  KHAAAAAAN!
  Or, for people under 30, there's Two Kirks, a Khan, and a Pizza Place.
  (Note: being way, WAY over 30 myself - my first thought was "KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!" as well.)
  (Note 2: No, actually I'm lying. My first thought was of Ghengis Khan, since he was my contemporary)
  (Note 3: Sorry, that wasn't quite true. I hung out with his kids, though. They got me in a lot of trouble! Ah, the memories....)
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
Proof... by mswhippingboy · 2011-02-11 08:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

that bittorrent can be used for legit purposes. Hopefully as a side benifit, this will make it harder for the MPAA crowd to villify these types of file sharing networks.

--
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
1. Re:Proof... by rainmouse · 2011-02-11 08:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  that bittorrent can be used for legit purposes. Hopefully as a side benifit, this will make it harder for the MPAA crowd to villify these types of file sharing networks.
  Though the threat to private Colleges and Universities that free learning poses could actually further fund and empower the MPAA.
2. Re:Proof... by mr100percent · 2011-02-11 09:24 · Score: 2
  
  Places like rural Pakistani schools (where the Khan academy is aiming for etc.) don't really have broadband. If you can torrent it from a cybercafe and then bring it with you to a classroom on a USB stick, that's great.
Human video projectors by mrcaseyj · 2011-02-11 08:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

So why do we have all these highly intelligent expensive professors wasting their time standing in front of hundreds of students in a lecture hall reciting their teaching script like a human video projector? Let the best lecturers in the country make videos and let the students send in questions and assemble a frequently asked questions list and then put those professors to work doing research for the benefit of humanity.
1. Re:Human video projectors by Lazareth · 2011-02-11 08:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Because teaching itself both builds character and strengthen your knowledge in your field. Because that human "video projector" is a human, readily able to take questions at any given time during the lecture.
  I'm not saying anything against video lectures. These things are great and it helps to open up and spread information around for the benefit of all. But they're not the same thing. They can be a substitute, but they're not for everybody. Some of use need those human video projectors to get through our education. Some of use need a mix of both.
2. Re:Human video projectors by Decessus · 2011-02-11 08:36 · Score: 2
  
  I think you are suggesting that we should do away with colleges and universities. If that's the case, then I'm going to have to disagree with you. I'm currently a college student and while I think it's overly expensive, I do think it is valuable nonetheless. What I get from college is more than just listening to lectures and doing homework. I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a wide variety of people who share the same interests that I do through student organizations. These opportunities would be lost, for the worse in my opinion, if college were to be completely eliminated.
3. Re:Human video projectors by Maxo-Texas · 2011-02-11 08:43 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Because when they do that, they cease to be expensive.
  Let's face it, most classes could be taught by lecture with a live human audience for the first recording (those people will get most of the obvious questions that the professor answers over and over and over and over) and teaching assistants.
  But, then you wouldn't need the professor again.
  It's like newspaper columnists. When we had local papers you needed them.
  But with national news media available, you really only need a dozen or so columnists in each area. Every one else is mostly redundant.
  You could literally have a dozen college calculus teachers in the entire world.
  Lowering the cost of providing calculus by 90%.
  Same for most other undergraduate courses.
  Only courses where the students actually need to talk interactively with the professor (very few) need human professors.
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
4. Re:Human video projectors by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-11 08:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I think you are suggesting that we should do away with colleges and universities. If that's the case, then I'm going to have to disagree with you. I'm currently a college student and while I think it's overly expensive, I do think it is valuable nonetheless. What I get from college is more than just listening to lectures and doing homework. I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a wide variety of people who share the same interests that I do through student organizations. These opportunities would be lost, for the worse in my opinion, if college were to be completely eliminated.
  Human interaction? You're interacting with humans right now. The internet is filled with people who are intelligent and open to conversation (and vice versa, as in college).
  Your tuition for college essentially pays for an evaluation/validation of your knowledge (your degree) and a presentation of information (professor lectures + powerpoints) if you wanted to get down to it. Office hours are wholly dependent on institute police. I'm also a college student as well.
5. Re:Human video projectors by Zerth · 2011-02-11 08:56 · Score: 2
  
  . I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a wide variety of people who share the same interests that I do through student organizations. These opportunities would be lost, for the worse in my opinion, if college were to be completely eliminated.
  Join a professional organization(IEEE or similar), a hackerspace, or something like FIRST. Go to cons.
  Even if you're in the middle of nowhere, you can livestream your workbench and dedicate a monitor to other people's streams to create a virtual hackerspace. You can't share tools as easily, but you can get live advice and encouragement. At the very least, find a forum more directly related to your interests than slashdot, post your projects and ask for comments.
6. Re:Human video projectors by mrcaseyj · 2011-02-11 09:27 · Score: 2
  
  I think the professor's knowledge would be strengthened more by studying deeper or more broadly or by research, rather than designing or delivering lectures. And professors could be made available to answer questions at any given time that students are watching the videos as well. Many questions should not distract and waste the time of many other students anyway. If the question is a good question, it should be included in the FAQ or incorporated into the video lecture. Why do you need a live lecturer to get through your education?
  Some say that meeting people is a main benefit of college. That is surely a major benefit. But isn't there plenty of less expensive ways that don't waste the lives of talented professors and the money of poor students and parents? Clubs, internet forums, professional societies, etc.
  I suspect one of the main purposes of regularly scheduled classes is just to get people to do the learning that they might otherwise never get around to. An externally imposed discipline. I haven't thought of any obvious alternative solution to that, but maybe with some kind of formal structure and time limits, it wouldn't be too big a problem.
7. Re:Human video projectors by TooMuchToDo · 2011-02-11 10:06 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, interactions online aren't the same as social interactions. Online interactions are more valuable because it's easier and more convenient for me to interact with those at my intelligence level and with the same goals than those I might find in my own geographic area. In-person interactions are limited by geography, time constraints, etc. Online interactions have no such issues.
8. Re:Human video projectors by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-11 10:27 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Have you tried explaining upper-level concepts to lower-level students? It is very hard, and requires you to really think about the relationships between things. I would argue it is actually a benefit to teach in the exact subject area you are researching, as it would help clarify concepts to yourself as you go along. And it does actually happen that a student asks a question that you've never considered before (either a completely new idea, or something you personally glossed over but the student caught), and thus both student and teacher learn simultaneously. I think its absolutely a good idea to have researchers come down from their towers and think about the foundations of their work. It's too easy to get wrapped up in upper-level concepts and forget what you set out to do and how it ties in with everything else.
9. Re:Human video projectors by Decessus · 2011-02-11 10:44 · Score: 2
  
  Those are some of the advantages that online interactions have over face to face interactions, although I disagree with a couple of the ones you listed which I'll get to shortly. However, face to face interactions also have advantages that online interactions do not have. Face to face interactions allow instant feedback. When I post something on Slashdot or a similar forum, at the very least I have to wait a few minutes for a response and often times I have to wait longer or I simply don't get a response back at all. This instant feedback leads to an overall flow of back and forth conversation which is also an advantage that face to face interactions have over online interactions.
  
  One of the advantages that you listed for online interactions is that it is easier and more convenient to interact with those of similar intelligence levels. I would argue that unless a person is uncommonly gifted, they should not have trouble finding people who are their intellectual equals in a college environment. At a larger university that has thousands of students, I also don't see how time would be that much of an advantage. My university has 50,000 students and I can go on campus at any time of the day or night and find people who are studying or otherwise involved in academic work.
  
  Again though, I would like to reiterate that I do not think online interactions are worthless or even less valuable than face to face interactions. I simply think they are different and each one is valuable for different reasons. And in relation to my original post, I think face to face interactions as well as other reasons justify the existence of colleges and universities.
10. Re:Human video projectors by mrcaseyj · 2011-02-11 14:13 · Score: 2
  
  You're concentrating on the benefits of lecturing but not fairly balancing the costs. If you're doing a good job for your students, then you're spending a huge number of hours designing and reciting lectures. One of the things that is highly beneficial for research is for researchers to expand their knowledge into quite different fields, e.g. a physicist studying sociology for a change. Such expansion of knowledge would likely be of greater benefit than reviewing and explaining what you already know to some students who can get it explained from somewhere else. There are also lots of journal articles and other writings in your own field that would be useful to read and would expand your mind, but nobody has time to read all the good ones. Researchers in every field could benefit greatly from increased mastery of the tools of their field such as a physicist studying more computer science, math, or electrical engineering. Questions from students and discussion with professors can be stimulating and educational, but I didn't suggest that communication stop, I just suggest that lectures are an inefficient way to facilitate such communication. Sure lecturing and teaching has considerable benefits, but those benefits are small compared to the alternatives.
*This* is the type of thing that makes me smile by StuartHankins · 2011-02-11 08:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

At a time when so many things are wrong in this world, Khan Academy is helping countless people improve their lives through education. The help of BitTorrent brings this to even more people. Truly awesome and many thanks!
1. Re:*This* is the type of thing that makes me smile by StuartHankins · 2011-02-11 09:02 · Score: 2
  
  I would argue that torrent distribution is even more important for those without broadband... because eventually you will receive the data. With more conventional methods, auto-resuming is more complicated. With torrents it's automatic.
Khan as inspiration by datavirtue · 2011-02-11 09:35 · Score: 2

I was inspired by Khan Academy to launch my first ever open source project. It replicates a little math tool Khan used to demonstrate slope-intercept in his videos, it's called eGraph. It also allows people to design, print, or project graphs in a classroom and it has a nice demo featuring the slope-intercept equation. When I saw the equation "animated" while changing the variables it instantly sunk in. During that time I was already building eGraph to design and print custom graph sheets, so I added the slope demo and released it for free. Its also a great little project for someone to learn the "meat" of several important java libraries (including Java2D - printing) and Netbeans (the source comes as a Netbeans project). http://www.datavirtue.com/egraph.html

--
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Because I'm looking at faces... by jeko · 2011-02-11 10:14 · Score: 2

No teacher worth a damn is just reading a script, even when they're teaching a class of 1000,,,
When I give a lecture, the students are feeding me information at the same time I'm feeding them. When I see a class filled with gray hair, I know I can get away with a Jerry Garcia reference. That won't work if I'm looking at kids wearing t-shirts from the latest Disney TV show. Am I getting silence because I have the class in rapt attention, or is it just the lull before the snoring starts? Are the frowns and forehead creases because they have no idea what I'm talking about or because I just tried to reference Charles Darwin in Dallas?
The difference between watching a video of a class and actually being in a classroom is the difference between watching porn and actually having sex.

--
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Re:Already made it months ago by failedlogic · 2011-02-11 10:17 · Score: 2

Glad you asked! Nothing else but the absolute minimum for a teaching videos. The torrent was made to be as small as possible (29 GB) using only the most efficient and smallest video and audio formats possible.
Format: Blu-ray video only. You will need a burner to play the video.
Resolution: 1080p video, 7.1 Dolby DTS audio.
Bitrate: video at 40 Mbit/s and audio at 24.5 Mbit/s.
Codecs are MPEG-4 AVC for video and DTS-HD (Lossless) for audio.
This should answer your specific questions. I must say its spectacular. Its like being in the classroom!
Note: I *might* stand to be corrected. In which case, please direct me to the appropriate Khan academy file(s) in the Torrent.