Can Anyone Catch Khan Academy?

waderoush writes "Even as name-brand universities like MIT and Harvard rush to put more courses on the Web, they're vying with an explosion of new online learning resources like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, Dabble, Skillshare, and, of course, Khan Academy. With 3,200 videos on YouTube and 4 million unique visitors a month, Sal Khan's increasingly entertaining creation is the competitor that traditional universities need to beat if they want to have a role in inspiring the next generation of leaders and thinkers. Lately Khan's organization has been snapping up some of YouTube's most creative educational-video producers, including 'Doodling in Math Class' creator Vi Hart and Smarthistory founders Beth Harris and Steven Zucker. Universities are investing millions in software for 'massive online open courses' or MOOCs, but unless they can figure out how to make their material fun as well as instructive, Khan may have an insurmountable lead." The Chronicle of Higher Education has a related article about the above-mentioned Coursera, and how they plan to make money off of free courses. A contract the company signed with the University of Michigan suggests they aren't quite sure yet.

Comments

Obligatory

[eternaldoctorwho]

Universities are investing millions in software for 'massive online open courses' or MOOCs, but unless they can figure out how to make their material fun as well as instructive, Khan may have an insurmountable lead.

Universities: KHAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

Re:Obligatory

[Teresita]

Overinflated tuition surely is an epic khan.

Re:Obligatory

[Deep Esophagus]

Missed opportunity: Should have titled this article "Catch Me If You Khan".

Degree

[AshFan]

How much weight does a Youtube degree carry in todays market?

Re:Degree

[Aqualung812]

I'm sick of that presumption. The point of education SHOULD be to become educated. Then, you use that education to do X work better than others without that education.

Instead, we treat it like a membership card into business. I fail to understand why so many MBAs hate unions when they refuse to hire someone without an MBA, thus creating their own union.

Re:Degree

[Anubis IV]

Accreditation and degrees carry weight because of what they mean. What does it mean if you say that you watched a few hundred YouTube videos and have the video history to back it up? Yes, you may have learned a lot from them, but how would anyone be able to tell that? Should they trust your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?

Yes, it's a membership card, but it's a necessary one. In an ideal world, employers would be able to recognize skill, regardless of whether there's a piece of paper in the applicant's hand. We're not in an ideal world, however. Even if there were a perfect and not-too-burdensome way for employers to test the skills of applicants, most competent employers are willing to accept an otherwise-excellent applicant who is a bit rusty on some topics, since they understand that the applicant's prior experience and skills will allow them to pick it up again quickly. You can't test for that easily, and on the surface it doesn't look much different from not knowing the material at all. A degree is a decent indication that the person's claim to have learned the material is true. A YouTube video history is not.

That said, if there were someone with prior work experience (i.e. the other form of membership card) who hadn't gone through a university, I don't see why that would be problematic at all. But hiring someone on the basis of their claim that they learned the material from a series of videos? I don't doubt that people have done it, but it seems to me like a rather large risk, or else an expensive process to go through to test the veracity of their claims. Especially so in programming and the like, where a student who goes uncorrected in their bad habits is likely to have developed poor practices that will be difficult to correct.

Re:Degree

[Jeng]

Being for education is different from people complaining about grammar.

Really how much would I be adding to the conversation if I replied complaining about your double use of the question mark?

Complaining about grammar in a forum, unless truly heinous, only distracts from the matters at hand.

Re:Degree

[Aqualung812]

I've been in the position of hiring, and degrees and accreditation are meaningless to me. Show me what you have done, for-profit or not.

If you spent the last 4 years of your life sitting in a classroom, getting drunk on Thursday-Saturday night, but didn't take the time to actually build something with the education you gained, chances are you're going to waste your workday by forming meetings, chatting with coworkers, and watching them do all of the work.

On the other end, with 20 years of IT work, I've had other companies refuse to even accept my resume when I tell them I don't have a 4-year degree. It is helpful, though, because I'd likely quit if surrounded by people like that.

I dropped out not because of bad grades, but because I was falling behind in the work I wanted to do (networking) during the school year, and then catching up while working a summer job related to my field. It only took two summers of that until I realized that it was pretty fucking stupid to PAY to fall behind for 8 months of the year and only GET PAID 3 months while actually learning.

I don't hold it against you if the best way for you to learn was through extra school. However, if all you have to show for your education is a piece of paper, get lost.

On a related note, this is why I really think a formal guild should exist for IT workers. NOT collective bargaining, but a system where an apprentice learns under a master in that field. The master vouches for the abilities of the apprentice, and after a few times of different masters vouching for them, they become a journeyman.

As someone hiring, it wouldn't take long to know that Master X's word was solid, and Master Y often approved jack-offs, so the system can be self-correcting.

Re:Degree

[war4peace]

Since we're sliding towards off-topic: proper, correct, clear communication holds value everywhere. Spelling errors (yes, even typos, it's not like somebody's holding a gun to your head to write as fast as possible) only distract from the matters at hand.

Re:Degree

[Jeng]

Yes, spelling and grammar errors may distract from the matters at hand, but do they distract more than those who complain about them? Also grammar and spelling correctors tend to be very rude about it.

It's not like people are asking "Did you mean this or that? I can't tell from your post.". It is people saying "Hey, you dumbshit, you made a minor mistake in your post. I still understood what you meant, but you are dumb for making that mistake."

Re:Degree

[Anubis IV]

Kudos to you for taking the time to properly interview candidates.

I don't disagree with anything you said. I merely believe that most employers would be unwilling to spend so much time interviewing candidates who likely have a lower chance of being prepared for the challenges posed by the job. For every excellent applicant that taught themselves via an alternative method, you'll have dozens of slackers who claim to have done so but have not. And while I agree entirely regarding your assessment of college, at least it establishes something. You'll still have a disproportionate number of slackers, but the number should be lower, given that college at least imposes some requirements, whereas self-study does not.

As I said in my original comment, I do believe that if someone has prior work experience then it shouldn't matter where they got their skills. At that point, as you said, you can judge them on the basis of their prior work, but if they lack prior work experience, then I see no problems with an employer using the degree as a filter on their candidate pool. It's not perfect, but it does help to remove the part of the pool that is less likely to have the necessary skills.

Re:Degree

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

In general, human beings are horrible about judgment and filtering - ask McCain about Mrs. Palin. We look for any tips to be able to filter for our choices. Why do you think brands matter so much? "Ahh, but I don't care about brands." Yes, you may not, but most people do.

We live in a world much more complex than our monkey brains can carry us. "There's a tiger, what should I do? RUN" is a much easier choice than "there are 100 resumes, which ones should I pick".

Lets think of MBA (or any accreditation) as a brand. What does it mean, as a filter? It means you managed to get into a school, managed to finance it, and managed to complete some level of coursework over a period long enough to attain a degree. It may not mean you're smart, but it does mean you accomplished at least some milestones, jumped some hurdles. HR people generally don't have enough skill to truly filter on technical details (or they'd probably not be in HR) so they look for the "brands". I may be able to learn something off of youtube, but I didn't jump any of the acceptance, finance, or grading hurdles.

I remember one interview I performed. I'm a UNIX guy, but as "crosstraining" I interviewed a Windows guy. He mentioned some ActiveDirectory migration. I know what AD is, but I have no idea if what he did was hard. Was it a 2 minute "click and AD does the rest" thing, or did it involve planning, rolling upgrades, coordinating logouts and logins to the new controller. No idea. So I had no easy way to filter. Luckily I know enough that I was able to figure he was a script monkey. But what if I didn't know AD at all? All i have is this "brand", a certificate from a good school or class.

Yeah, it sucks. In the real world, we'd all be able to test everyone and a brand wouldn't matter. But that's a world without humans, because we all use brands and guesswork to fill in insufficient data.

Re:Degree

[war4peace]

I'd replace "dumb" with "careless". Being careless has repercussions in pretty much all areas, and I really don't think that carelessness is something you turn on and off. Writing on Slashdot, for example, doesn't entitle people to be careless, not any more than when writing their own CV or an important speech.
I would honestly prefer to correct someone's written entry rather than point it out, but if I can't do the former, I sometimes do the latter, especially when that entry is riddled with mistakes. I could live with finding a hair in my food, but when there's a whole tuft sprinkled around, I would protest.

Re:Degree

[thegarbz]

I've been in the position of hiring, and degrees and accreditation are meaningless to me. Show me what you have done, for-profit or not.

If you spent the last 4 years of your life sitting in a classroom, getting drunk on Thursday-Saturday night, but didn't take the time to actually build something with the education you gained, chances are you're going to waste your workday by forming meetings, chatting with coworkers, and watching them do all of the work.

I hope you've never been in the position of hiring a fresh graduate then. If you put the required effort into a typical Uni degree it should take 40-50 hours of work every week. If a graduate comes to me with a whole host of various experience etc I'd be strongly looking at their grades too as chances are they're at the point of flunking.

Many people here seem to be of the belief that it's a one or the other thing. It's not. Formal training teaches a lot of fundamental knowledge. On the job experience teaches a lot of technical expertise.

Re:Degree

[sootman]

> Accreditation and degrees carry weight because of what they mean. What
> does it mean if you say that you watched a few hundred YouTube videos
> and have the video history to back it up? Yes, you may have learned a lot
> from them, but how would anyone be able to tell that? Should they trust
> your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a
> recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?

LOL. I can show you a million examples of both a) people with degrees who don't know a damn thing and b) people who don't have degrees who are masters at what they do.

If you plotted the smartness of people with degrees and without degrees you'd get two bell curves and the "with" one might be a little more on the "smarter" side, but having a degree is by no means a guarantee of intelligence, and not having a degree is not a guarantee of the opposite.

From talking to many people that do hiring for many places, a degree MIGHT tip the scales in favor of someone who is better at what they do, but in real life it's never that close. If you really do have a choice between two people who are nearly identical (and that almost never happens) the nod will RARELY go to one just for having a degree when the other doesn't. The person hiring will pick the one he likes more, or gets a better feeling about, or who he just thinks will work harder, etc.

Catch?

[mmcxii]

Since when has education become a competition?

Re:Catch?

[Chonnawonga]

Since when has education become a competition?

Since it became a business.

Re:Catch?

[cpu6502]

>>>became a business.

Which has been true since before recorded history. Education has always involved paying a tutor or lecturer to teach the younger generation, and thus the tutors were actually businessmen selling a service.

Re:Catch?

[Chonnawonga]

No argument here. And by extension, it's been a competition since before recorded history.

Re:Catch?

[chippey]

Getting teachers and educators paid != try to squeeze every bit of profit out of students. My interpretation of Chonnawonga's comment is that there has been a transition of focus from education's primary goal of educating and imparting knowledge and learning (paying the teachers enough for a liveable wage), to 'education' as a business where the primary goal is to profit and make money for the bureaucratic overhead.

missing the point entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been good textbooks for centuries. Watching a video is not going to improve things much. Online quizzes don't make people brilliant.

The first reason the top universities are at the top is their research output.

And the reason undergraduates excel at those top universities is that they spend almost every day for several years in contact with the people and resources which make that research possible. They go to tutorials. They chat through problems. They do extended lab work. They write extended pieces of work which are marked carefully by experts who can provide interactive feedback.

The Open University, the pioneering distance education factility in the UK which has several hundred thousand part-time and FTE students, has since 1969 provided more than all these supposedly "new" online education providers: custom textbooks tailored for learning with worked problems; a tutor who will mark your work and who you can contact whenever you want when you have a problem; several face-to-face tutorials throughout the year; possibly one or more residential schools; etc. Exams are all done in exam centres under exam conditions. Even then, it cannot hope to match the best red brick universities.

Khan knows how to market itself. It gives an opportunity to those dilettantes who don't know where else to find the information, online or offline. But it won't produce a new generation of leaders / top thinkers.

Re:missing the point entirely

[White Flame]

There have been good textbooks for centuries. Watching a video is not going to improve things much.

Oh yes it does. A conversational description of the material, as opposed to over-edited reference-worthy technical descriptions, can go a very long way in helping understanding. Seeing the interaction of somebody actually working through a problem and pointing things out (including their thought process), instead of a terse list of opaque steps, is huge. Along with the slides and downloads, all the reference material is still represented, but watching another human demonstrate the information is much often a faster and deeper way to communicate the same concepts. Not everybody can learn as well from just reading textbooks, even the good ones. Even if they can, going through a video lecture before reading the text seems to be a great way to make the reading far more meaningful, as familiarity has been bootstrapped.

There is merit to the other facets you describe, but lowering the cost and other barriers to entry to actual training (not just reference materials) is an amazing step forward.

Re:missing the point entirely

[del_diablo]

Text versus video? Irrelevant. The core problem with education is that either the teachers are not up to the standard, or the books are poorly written. And what is Khans academy doing? They are doing videos, but that is irrelevant in itself, what they are actually doing is to do a proper job at TEACHING their material, in contrast to many sources.
If you have a problem with Khan being video, then why don't you have a problem with subpar teaching in general?

Re:missing the point entirely

[dcollins]

"...watching another human demonstrate the information is much often a faster and deeper way to communicate the same concepts."

Well, I just flat-out disagree. I've tried to go through at least two online video courses, and for me video is insanely slow and frustrating. I can't efficiently see where to skip ahead when someone is blathering on about obvious things (to me), and I can't search for key words or definitions. This is purely personal opinion, but I am truly boggled at the idea that anyone finds video better than a book.

Re:missing the point entirely

[DriedClexler]

And the reason undergraduates excel at those top universities is that they spend almost every day for several years in contact with the people and resources which make that research possible. They go to tutorials. They chat through problems. They do extended lab work. They write extended pieces of work which are marked carefully by experts who can provide interactive feedback.

Ahhh...hahahahaha! Oh, my, god, what a fucking JOKE! There might be maybe 2 universities where this idyllic scenario actually plays out (and even then probably not at the undergrad level). Wayyyy over here in the real world, that never fucking actually happens, and if it's your justification for traditional education, then it's an enormous rationalization of keeping things the way they are.

Don't forget Teaching Company

[cpu6502]

I've been buying their product since the 90s when they were called "The Great Teachers" company. I took advantage of their once or twice-a-year sales to clear the warehouse. A customer can buy an entire course (~50 hours) for about the same cost as a month of cable. I learned more about history, language, philosophy from those audiocassettes than 5 years of actual college.

non-profit vs profit

[djbckr]

It really all comes down to this. Kahn Academy is non-profit, and is more interested in the public good. Everybody else that wants to get on this bandwagon simply can't compete with this, because they want money, and lots of it. Nobody else will be able to stop them.

Khan doesn't have much for advanced material

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of stuff being offered by traditional universities which is way above Khan's level. Khan is great for an introduction, and even a bit more, but that is all. For example, take a look at Stanford's Convex Optimization course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McLq1hEq3UY
Khan doesn't offer anything close to that. There's plenty of room for competitors to grow.

Khan Academy criticisms

[ebusinessmedia1]

Khan Academy is a great resource, but it's far from a perfect substitute if one want to accomplish deep learning. The fact is that there is a LOT of free and very helpful tutorial learning material on the Internet. Khan has caught a lot of interest because of the sheer scale that Sal Khan accomplished on his own. I think it's a great tool, but is becoming quite overrated in terms of what we know from those who teach face-to-face, and learning science.

Here are some valid criticisms of Khan Academy. http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2012/07/03/the-trouble-with-khan-academy/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/khan-academy-and-the-effectiveness-of-science-videos/

In sum, Khan Academy is NOT a revolution in learning; it's a tool that many will use to help revolutionize education.

Re:Khan Academy criticisms

[aurizon]

Khan grows daily, and it quite capable of teaching high levels, even above the doctorate level.
Khan is a scattering of disparate modules, and quality varies.
It needs to be structured so that it can be learned standard courses in each discipline, on a term by term and year by year basis - albeit in far less time.
It also needs lab courses - youtube does fill the lab need, but not as well as a true lab, where fluids are poured and voltages measured and lab reports written and graded.
I can see a time where there is computer grading, with a secure ID, tied to IP address to give certificates of some kind. Machine certificates done by remote are still susceptible to hired ringers writing exams for people (which plagues real colleges too), the real world will demand real invigilated exams for each course before a complete course can be graded as passed and an aggregate of course completed as a year passed and three/four years = a degree. Once this is done, the entire degree will be able to compete in the hiring process.

I can see a process of maturation in the idea, but the idea of invigilated exams added to Khan will take a way to pay for this, since it goes beyond volunteer work (IMHO).

Five years from now, we will be amazed at how far they have come. I wonder if the brick and mortar colleges will try to kill the idea???

Re:Khan Academy criticisms

[loneDreamer]

Khan Academy is doing much more than publishing videos. They are creating a bunch of software to establish topic networks, tests, student tracking, etc. They are even testing an inverted scheme of education where students watch videos on their of (as homework) and go to class to exercise and being able to question the teachers and discuss the topics. This heavily impacts the ability of the teachers to provide more individual help while at the same time avoids lectures that go at the rate of the slower students. It's in his infancy no doubt, but it's a whole new learning approach/platform and that IMHO could result in an actual learning revolution.

Different Audience

[Anonymous Coward]

Khan Academy targets a wider audience than the others that are mentioned. Most of the others are aimed at university level education. For example, Coursera is mostly undergraduate courses like Algorithms and Cryptology. Udacity has some machine learning car. A lot of these are also tech based and/or programming based.

Meanwhile, Khan Academy offers everything from elementary Algebra and Geometry to Calculus and Differential Equations. So they reach the whole k-12 audience which the others will not reach. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different product. I hope they don't water down Coursera because it's good at what it does: free undergraduate level courses. I don't want it to spend time doing 8th grade Geometry, Khan does that already!

Distance learning - good and bad

[Bruce66423]

Having done a normal university course, a couple of decades ago, and now having experienced normal distance learning, where there is no interaction with other students, some with limited interaction, and some with a lot, I am totally convinced of the value of student contact with other students as a necessary element for really effective learning. Similarly the opportunity to challenge a lecturer over an issue is totally lacking in the Khan model; whilst that works to some extent for purely technical subjects, even there robust seminars are a useful adjunct to pure lectures. And it's this area where Khan will fall down; it's good as a means of transmitting knowledge from the lecturer to the notebook of the student - but education should be more than that. And it's that second element that costs the money to provide.

videos and passive learning

[manaway]

Khan's lectures are simple, accurate, and highly valuable. However, how much does one learn from passively watching great lectures which ignore a student's missteps and false presumptions? This Veritasum video on Khan's videos demonstrates the effectiveness, or rather ineffectiveness, of at least some kinds of video learning. (And yes, the irony of using a video to teach the ineffectivenss of educational videos will not be lost on anyone.)

Education more art than science

[Ransak]

"Fair enough, but in its essence, teaching is a performance art." - Amy Farrah Fowler

Oh c'mon

[luis_a_espinal]

Can Anyone Catch Khan Academy?

Anyone? No. Someone? Probability would say "yes".

Universities are investing millions in software for 'massive online open courses' or MOOCs, but unless they can figure out how to make their material fun as well as instructive, Khan may have an insurmountable lead.

What a load of crap. I love Khan's materials, but not because they are fun, but because they are valuable. Plus, I had plenty of college professors that made their lectures fun. And I had classes that were some of the most imporant in my education, and I know the subject and delivery weren't fun. Fun is not an intrinsic property of good education.

Edutainment != education. Such is the state of our sorry ZOMG-Kardashian society.

Also there is pretention in the quoted text that colleges are having a hard time producing instructive online material. Seriously, have they never seen a Stanford/MIT online lecture? There are many universities out there providing grad-level education online with success.

Another thing that people misconstrue (and not a criticism of Khan's videos, but of the fanboys who do) is that Khan's videos are nice to watch because... gasp, they are, in general, relatively shorter than a full-blown lecture. A 90-minute long video lecture will bore you down no matter how "fun" the instructor is. Specially if the material is dense. Or try a 3 hour video lecture. You'll be crawling off the walls even if it is performed by your favorite professor (I know because I've had to take those lectures @ WPI.)

1. If Google were to decide to put its might behind Udacity (which is really fine material btw), wouldn't anyone think that it would pass over Khan Academy? Ergo, the title of this story is an oxymoron like no other.

2. Universities will adapt, prices will go down. They won't get replaced by them, in particular when it comes to research. What I see here is that these private enterprises will accelerate adoption of online media by brick-n-mortar schools (which has been occuring since before Khan came into the picture.)

This is not to take anything away from Khan's marvelous work. But for Christ' sake, don't treat it like the second coming holding the holy grail while riding a silver bullet.

4-year degree CS is not IT

[Joe_Dragon]

I have seen lot's of IT jobs (desktop / admin / network) that want a cs degree then CS is more on the high level theory side of things and is more for doing programming work.

It's not Khan they are trying to catch....

[erp_consultant]

It is the notion that someone will come along and take what Khan has done and make it a real substitute for traditional in class learning. Khan has taken a very altruistic approach to learning. He believes that it should be free to anyone that wants it. American universities, especially private universities, are most definitely in it to make money. Yes, they want to educate people but make no mistake - they want to bring in as much cash as they can. Look no further than college sports for evidence of that. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing but it's at odds with Khan's stated approach to education. What the universities really fear is someone coming along that has a profit mindset and improving what Khan has done to the extent that it becomes a compelling alternative to traditional in class education. And if that alternative all of a sudden gets widespread acceptance in the business community as a valid degree on par with the in class degree the universities will be in a world of hurt. That's why they are all jumping into the online realm. They need to have some kind of offering out there just in case. Just as an aside, I have been working in the IT field for a long time and the best programmer I ever worked with had an English degree. The next best had a math degree. The next best didn't have any degree at all - completely self taught. I'm not saying that a CompSci degree is worthless but I have worked with an awful lot of people without one that were every bit as good as people with one. As more people with online degrees get into management I think you'll see the acceptance online degrees continue to grow.

college for all and the one size fit's all ideas =

[Joe_Dragon]

college for all and the one size fit's all ideas = what we are seeing today in Universities.

Yes do need some post high school learning but we are going about it in not the right way.

Not all people are cut out for college and not all courses plans / classes are at the college level and other stuff is just fluff and filler.

Re:that is what continuing education

[dgatwood]

that is what continuing education is for...

Which in practice never actually happens. Sure, if you've just gotten laid off, continuing ed classes might be a way to become employable again, but for the most part, while you're working, you're working. You aren't going back to school constantly, and apart from the things you have to learn to keep your job, you're probably not taking classes on the side to make yourself a better candidate for a position at another company. This means that you're less mobile, and therefore are likely to get paid less for working longer hours, because they know they don't have to pay you more money to retain you as an employee.

Only Post-Scarcity Princeton can? :-)

[Paul Fernhout]

http://www.post-scarcity-princeton.com/
From the essay I wrote four years ago: "... We are witnessing a historic end to scarcity of many things (maybe not all, but enough to be a new global Renaissance). But is Princeton University helping prepare either students or the rest of society for these changes? Or is it instead an institution under stress, crashing into these trends instead of moving with them? Or is it perhaps conflicted in how it sees itself and its future, and so trying to do both these conflicting approaches at once? ... Capitalism is often it seems all about cost cutting. Why do people have such a hard time thinking about what happens as costs approach zero, even for improvements in quality? Or why do economists have a hard time understanding that many conventional economic equations may produce infinities as costs trend towards zero? ... Here is one approach to "reboot" Princeton for a post-scarcity world. This is just an example. No doubt the creative minds on campus can come up with better proposals once they turn their attention to the matter. Should these be followed, it's a lot more likely I might encourage my own child to apply in a dozen years or so. ..."