- Hello, it looks like we are live.
Hello everyone, Sal here from Khan Academy.
Welcome to the daily homeroom
for those of y'all that this is the first time
that you're joining.
This is really a way to connect and realize
that we're all part of a global community here,
especially in this time of school closures.
Obviously Khan Academy we're a not-for-profit
mission free-world class education
for anyone anywhere.
And well before this crisis
we're going through was happening
obviously our vision was how could we support teachers,
how do we support students,
how do we support parents
so that any child, and any teacher can support that child,
to go through the core subjects from pre-K,
elementary school, middle school, high school,
and the core of college across subjects and grades.
I will remind folks that we are not-for-profit
and so we're able to do all of this
with philanthropic support from folks like yourself.
And so we've always had those resources,
but then when we saw the school closures happening
we realized that it's our duty,
as a not-for-profit in this space,
that it's free, that it's accessible
to do whatever else we can to make sure
that you feel supported.
So above and beyond the many subjects and grades
that we offer in math, English, language, arts,
science, and the humanities on Khan Academy,
we've been trying to do these live streams
which is just a way to connect and make announcements
and focus on specific topics
that are front-of-mind for folks
during the school closures,
and also things like teacher webinars, parent webinars.
We've also been experimenting even with live class rooms
at a very large scale with students
so that we can answer their questions
on topics like algebra.
I do wanna give a special thanks.
You know Khan Academy was already running
at a little bit of a deficit before all of this hit
for us to be able to do our mission
and now that our server costs are going up two X,
and maybe approaching three X,
we need as much support as possible.
I wanna thank folks like Bank of America
who was the first to step-up
followed closely by AT&T, google.org, and Nevartis.
But we need more help from corporations, from everyone,
whatever you can donate is great.
So I am very excited today about today's topic
because it's actually a topic that many of you
have been asking about,
it's a topic that I desperately wanna learn
about as a father of a 5-year-old
who in this time of social distancing is, you know,
not to pick on him maybe the most disruptive member
of our household right now (laughing).
And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna bring on
Caroline who is actually the founder
of Khan Academy Kids and maybe a good place to start
Caroline is, actually how did this start,
what is Khan Academy Kids
even before the school closures happened
and then we can talk a little bit about
what we're trying to do together
to support folks even more.
- Sure, so Khan Academy Kids,
for those of you who don't know,
is an educational program for kids
ages two through seven and it includes
thousands of activities across a variety of subjects
math, reading, language,
as well as social and emotional development
and executive-function skills.
So it's a comprehensive program for early learning
for preschool through grade one
and it has a personalized learning pack
where we adapt the lessons for each child's skill level
on specific topics.
It also includes a library that has hundreds of books
many of which are original books around our characters
and then we also have some partnerships
with National Geographic, Super Simple, and Bellwether
to deliver some of the other books and content.
- And as a reminder this is all free,
all non-commercial and I wanna give Caroline,
and her husband, Michael, credit
'cause they're the cool founders
of what became Khan Academy Kids.
And I think it's important for folks to realize
that, you know, similar to how Khan Academy started
as a not-for-profit is really a family project
a way for me to help my cousin
and word got around that free tutoring was going on
and it started being many, everyone's cousins maybe.
You started also as a family project.
You and Michael actually created
some of the very first apps back in
2008, 2009, 2010,
on devices that showed the world
that these can actually be things that young children
can interact with.
And then y'all essentially donated,
your team donated your org to this mission.
So I don't think I'm overstating it
that, you know, this isn't like some corporate effort,
we're not trying to sell people,
with you and Michael it's a family project,
you have other incredible team members,
it's really an act of love that you're trying to do,
that you started for your family
and then you're trying to do for many others.
- That's right, we've been working in early childhood
for 10 years on this and so, yep.
- And your background shows that you have
a much better background than I do
and I need to get some
fingerprinting done-- - I don't know about that.
- That might-- - Oh yes.
- So let me,
(laughing) let me start with a couple of questions.
I think, as I mentioned,
the early learning crowd is,
especially with parents working from home,
preschools have been closed,
kindergartens have been closed,
they are some of the most difficult I think
to, you know, say, hey why don't you just work on this
for a little bit.
What advice to you have for parents generally speaking
and potentially leveraging Khan Academy Kids as well
in this time of closures.
- Yeah, I mean, I'd say as a parent myself,
and Sal's a parent of young children as well,
all I can say is, you know, give yourself a break
and be kind to yourself to start with
because all of us have been unexpectedly
thrown into this situation.
Already, as parents of young children,
we were very busy being parents
and juggling (mumbles) and other things
and now we've been catapulted into many other roles,
of teacher, carer, magician, among other things,
and there's just so much going on.
I'd say be kind to yourself first and foremost
and also we're in this, you know, for the long haul
and so I think this is a new normal
that we're all adjusting to.
We are working hard on some things
that we think might help,
but I think the biggest advice would be
to think of this as a balance.
You're gonna be balancing some learning time with your kids
as well as play time and academic time
and outside time, so it's really just about the balance
and it's not a sprint we're just going to have
to adjust to this new normal.
And so a few things that we're doing
that we think may help in addition
to the core Khan Academy Kids program
is just like Sal is doing these daily homerooms
we're launching today, daily Circle Time,
which is like Circle Time in preschools,
and kindergartens and first grades,
where the teachers have a chance
to connect with the students.
So Sophie from my team and I
will be leading these Circle Times
and they are a time for us to connect, read books,
do learning activities, get the kids up to stretch
and do some imaginary play too.
We're trying to keep some semblance of what's,
of normal during these changing times.
And I think we're just really acknowledging that,
you know, these are difficult difficult times
for many families and children.
So the children may not know
the specifics of what COVID-19 is,
but they are going through change.
Maybe their school is closed,
maybe their parents are working at home,
or their parents are just much busier
and more concerned about different things.
So we're trying to address those head-on
and our first episode is a special episode
about how to talk to kids through these changing times.
And what we're doing is instead of just explaining
the specifics of the virus which they might not,
you know, it may not be age appropriate,
we are giving them three super powers
that they already have that they can use tools
in times of change.
So things like, being thankful, belly breathing,
and being a helper.
So in addition to
Circle Time-- - Those are useful for all
of us (laughing). - I think yeah, for kids
of all age as well as parents.
And so I think-- - Belly breathing.
- As parents watching with their kids
they can do it together.
You wanna do it together (laughing)?
- I love that we're doing it. - Sal has already.
(voice covers voice) I know.
- Yeah I have the belly you was talking about
is why you said to breathe.
(laughing)
So let me ask, there's a lot of great questions
that are already pouring in
and I want to get to as many of them,
but I'm gonna start with a selfish question
that I think is a lot of folks are asking.
Especially with younger ages
we're always sensitive to screen time,
and by definition Khan Academy,
Khan Academy Kids is on a screen.
But now we're in this new normal, as you mentioned,
where screens are in some ways our only lifeline
to the outside world, or socialization.
How are you thinking about it,
I know you all are consulting a lot of experts,
child psychologists, researchers,
what are they telling you, what do you know about
appropriate use of screen time generally
and screen time in the context of Khan Academy Kids?
- Yeah, I think, as I was alluding to earlier,
it's all about balance.
So, we definitely don't want the young kids
just on a screen.
So we need to balance a few minutes in the morning,
up to 10 to 20 to 30 minutes,
on something like, on Academy Kids,
that's rich and educational and enriching
where you can see the kids interacting with the technology
and singing and even getting up sometimes
to sing along and stomp around.
But we need to balance that with outdoor time
and play time, family time, free time,
as well as reading, reading real books.
Or parents can also read books in our app in the library
and when they do it together
it's a very different experience
than a child just looking at technology.
So again, it's just about balance.
- And just out of curiosity,
I mean we've been seeing the traffic on our side
on kinda the core Khan Academy, or non-Academy kids,
up about 2 1/2 fold.
We're using this as a meeting,
what are y'all seeing on downloads
and what other information over the last two weeks?
- Yeah, well overall since our launch in 2018
Khan Academy Kids has been downloaded
over six million times, has had great usage,
but this week is really an anomaly
We've seen our new users up by over 10 times
our normal rates.
So. - Wow, wow.
- Very happy to be a resource that parents and teachers
and families can draw upon.
- Right great, so let me get to some of the questions
that I'm seeing.
So there's one question, my child is on the autism spectrum
do you have any tips for using the Khan Kids app
with children with autism?
How can I make sure it's engaging and motivating for him?
- So we've heard from families
with children on the spectrum and it,
children are all different, and I think our app is designed
to be engaging and easy to use for all children.
So it's designed for pre-readers
and designed to be intuitive for children to explore
and there's no, you know, one way to use it.
And I think with the core characters
that we have in our app they tend to really,
children connect with these characters.
They all have different personalities
so different children can latch onto different characters
and then we use a lot of music so, as Sal was saying,
this is a homegrown effort, co-founder and husband,
plays the cello in the app
and we do a lot of the music in our app ourselves
and all of the illustrations and character books
are all done in-house by our very talented
animators and illustrators.
So, yeah I think it is an app that the pre-readers,
as well as children of different abilities,
can use in different ways.
- I have to say Caroline
whenever I come over to your house
I have a little bit of insecurity as a parent
where I see your family,
like, oh we should bring out our cellos and play together.
(laughing)
- We do. - There's something about,
something of a role model for me as me personally,
my wife does a much better job,
but I have aspirations.
Let's see, we have other questions.
So this is, this is from YouTube.
Krehenge wants to know how would you use
Khan Academy Kids if there isn't
a translation for their language yet?
And I have some ideas there but I'm curious
to what you think Caroline.
- Yeah well we've heard from families from all of the world
that they're using it to learn English, is one thing,
but again as I was saying,
it's been designed for pre-readers.
So children can play with the interactive activities,
do the counting, and the logic as well as,
you know, listen to the books
that are read aloud in English
even if they don't know and I think
kids learn really quickly
so that's one way we've seen it being used.
- Yeah, exactly because it's literally at a level
for when people are literally just learning language
and numbers and motor skills,
and social/emotional learning,
that actually almost a child anywhere
can actually interact with it.
And in many parts of the world
it's actually a really useful skill
to actually have some of that
baseline English proficiency,
but, you know, longer term we might be able to think
about ways to localize.
All right, so other questions.
So let's see from Facebook, Andre Philipe says,
I was wondering if Khan Academy Kids
has a course on how to teach online?
Of course everything is explained so well,
well you're being very generous Andre,
and clearly because of COVID-19
I'm forced to teach online.
So, I think I can handle that question.
We don't have any courses on that yet.
My advice to you, and this goes back to
when I was tutoring for my cousins,
and that was really a blessing
that I started with my cousins
'cause it allowed me not
to put too much pressure on myself,
is just get started, there's many ways you can do it.
You can use your cellphone, use a whiteboard,
you can find some, you know, you can go online
and buy a camera,
a phone holder stand,
that you can point downwards
and you can do lectures on paper.
You obviously can also do what I do
which is a digital, I use an art program,
I use SketchBook and you can,
I do screen capture using Camtasia
and I have a decent microphone.
This is something you can buy
at your local electronic store
and you could do it that way.
But that's the technical setup
and my advice on how to do it is just,
you know, be yourself.
Don't, sometimes when people get recorded
they can freeze up a little bit,
or get a little stressed out, be yourself,
laugh at yourself, feel like,
these are your students you're talking to,
feel like you're talking to them,
feel like you're talking to your cousins.
And I think the more you just get started,
get a lot of feedback from them,
keep iterating on it, I think you're gonna develop
your own style and it'll be pretty cool.
See other questions, from Facebook,
Trixie Hansen says, can you guys do a live tutoring
on YouTube, Facebook for students if they need help
only using their Khan Academy work?
And then there's a second part.
Why can't my parents print a report card
if all of my progress and assignment scores online?
So, Trixie, we actually are exploring some of those things
like a YouTube, we've actually been doing these webinars.
We've been publicizing it on social media
and on the link on that daily schedule that we put out
which are schedules for students of different age groups
including the Khan Academy Kids crowd,
to structure their days.
We've been saying, we've running some experiments
and starting with algebra.
We've been working though algebra-worked examples,
but we're making them as interactive as possible
where students can answer the questions,
you know, answer surveys, we can see what they did
and then we can answer their questions.
So expect to see some more of that,
we're trying to do as much as we can.
And print your report card of progress,
in theory they can.
You know we haven't built a specific functions for,
I guess you could say formal printable report cards,
but the teachers and parent dashboards
have reports on, if they are a student's coach,
what the student has been working on,
what they've gotten mastery in,
what assignments they've completed,
so in theory that could be printed, printed out.
So from YouTube, Anusha Amed asks,
can you use Khan Academy Kids on a computer, Caroline?
- Unfortunately not yet.
It's more for mobile devices on IOS and Android
as well as Chromebooks.
But we, with the Circle Time
you'll be able to see that on YouTube.
We also are coming out with daily offline activities
where children can do math and reading offline
in printable or using things around their house.
So things like "Math Mondays,"
"Writing Workshop Wednesdays,"
and "Thoughtful Thursdays."
- And just to add to what Caroline said,
you know, this is all free, not-for-profit,
so whether you're on Android or IOS
you can download this app,
there's no shady upselling, this is literally free,
philanthropically supported,
so we need your help to keep Khan Academy Kids going
especially with the load we're seeing 10 X of normal load.
We already had six million downloads before this
and now we're at 10 X of normal load
so we need your help.
But this is all free, this is all noncommercial
so hopefully it's accessible
to you and your children Anusha.
So, from YouTube we have Astro Jayden.
Says, hey Sal this is Jayden I'm wondering
if I can change up my schedule to fit my day.
I'm in 6th grade and there's no telling
how each day will go?
And my answer to you, or response Astro, is absolutely.
The whole goal of those schedules
are to be a starting point.
Allow people to realize, okay, I got this,
this is a reasonable way to handle it.
But feel free to copy it, paste it, modify it,
so it meets your needs
so that it can meet your day.
And I think like its sounds like you do want
to have some type of a schedule
which does help structure your days
especially when we're all spending a lot of time at home
which I think is a really great thing.
And I think that's actually a great skill as 6th grader
that you're developing there's this like,
that meta-skill, okay how should I structure my day?
How should I plan?
How should I make sure I get everything done
that I want to?
So, good job Astro.
Okay, another question and this is from YouTube,
littlegummy34.
Hi Sal, why are missions going down on Khan Academy?
All right that's a very good question
that I'm sure many people are asking.
Missions is actually,
so for those of you who don't know,
historically over the last 10 years
there's really been two ways to experience Khan Academy,
really three ways.
One is you do a web search on a concept,
factoring quadratics, and then you get,
go to the right part of Khan Academy
and you could do it that way,
we've historically called that the library review,
and then there's this thing called missions
where if you find the missions on say algebra,
or other subjects it will be kind of a guided practice
and there's game mechanics and all this notions of mastery.
And what we realized about four or five years ago
is missions actually has a lot
of efficacy research behind it,
but we realized it was kind of unfortunate
that there was these two worlds.
Our ideal world is to do what a good tutor would do
is that you come to us for help,
through a web search, and then we help you
for your immediate need, maybe you're trying
to learn something for a test tomorrow,
or do your homework, but then the game mechanics
of things like missions kinda suck you in,
in a good way.
And so what we started building about two years ago
is what we call course mastery.
So now when you do a search and you fall into Khan Academy
you can get your immediate help,
get some practice and feedback,
but there's already mastery mechanics around it.
And so what we, the reason why we're going to,
you know, the fancy word is deprecate missions,
which means over the next year or so,
we're going to be taking it down,
is because the course mastery is being able
to pick up the slack of what missions was doing before.
And so that's my simple answer.
And then we are committed to continually improving
that course mastery, so not only does it do
everything that missions did,
we just launched things like mastery challenges
on our course mastery, but we hope it goes there
and beyond and has all of the benefits
of our library view, but that's an excellent question.
All right, so from YouTube, Daniel Marzeta asks,
what is the difference between
a mastery challenge and assignments?
Are assignments just a focused mastery challenge,
is a mission mastery challenge?
Okay, so we're going deep into the (mumbles)
but these are good questions
because I know there are a lot of folks,
especially with the school closures,
spending more time at Khan Academy,
you're using it as the resource
that you're really leaning on.
So a mastery, so there's, when you do skills
and I'll just say math, but we have mastery
in other subjects as well,
you can focus on that skill and it might ask you
to do five questions.
And if you get four right it'll say, you're familiar,
if you get five out of five it says,
it'll say you're fluent.
And then there's another level called mastery.
And the only way that you get mastery is,
if you're already fluent, and you get that question right,
in either a,
a unit test,
which is sampling all of the skills of the unit,
a mastery challenge, or a course challenge.
And the reason why we do that is we feel
that you only are truly mastering it
when you know when to recognize to do that problem
and you're seeing it with other problems
and you have to kind of remember I might,
maybe had to apply some of those concepts or skills.
Mastery challenges are things we just launched,
and they always existed in missions,
where not only do they allow you to up-level
these things that you are already proficient in,
but they also are doing what's called, spaced repetition.
So we know that you can learn something,
we've all experienced it, but a month later,
two months later, you might have forgotten it,
and especially with a lot of these skills
it's really important to retain it over time.
And so there's a lot of learning science behind it,
but mastery challenge is, beyond being just an opportunity
to up-level the skills that you're already proficient in,
it's also a chance to make sure
that you still have mastered things from before.
So mastery challenges tend to be a little bit shorter,
take a little less time,
they're good ways to level-up
and they're good ways to review.
Unit tests are great ways if you're just trying
to get mastery in that unit,
you're trying to understand what your gaps are
in that unit and you're trying to level-up.
And course challenges are great
if you want to understand your understanding
of the whole course,
maybe figure out where your gaps are
and then zero-in on those units
that you might be having difficulty with.
But this is all great feedback for us
to just make all of this that much,
that much clearer.
Let's see, other questions we have,
we have a little bit more time.
I'm seeing if there, if there,
let me ask another Khan Academy Kids question for Caroline.
From YouTube, Algomarbleracer says,
when was the app created?
I'm assuming they're talking about the,
we have two apps, we have the Khan Academy app
and the Khan Academy Kids app.
I'd love to, you know,
when was the Khan Academy Kids app created
and kind of where, how do you see it evolving?
- Yeah so we launched Khan Academy kids in 2018,
so it's been out for a little over a year
and it is rapidly evolving.
We are working on more tools to help in this environment
of remote learning and so stay tuned.
In the next few weeks we'll have some announcements
about new things that we can use for our remote learning.
Currently it goes from preschool through grade one.
We'll be aging up to grade two as well over time.
- And, you know, I can't, I can't overstate
how powerful what Caroline, Michael,
and their team have created.
You know you saw some videos of it,
but it's somewhat magical 'cause the videos kinda pause
and then the kids are asked to manipulate
what was actually in the video, and so it's.
And I have, as I mentioned, a 5-year-old
and he loves it.
And there's also plenty of books in there,
things that you can read alongside of your children.
I think you're seeing in some of these videos,
this is kinda the best use case.
The family gets together, does it together,
it's a time to connect.
And we also know there are times in this
where you're trying to get some work
and you wanna say, what's nutritious screen time
for your child where you can feel confident
they're learning.
and Caroline's been doing some incredible work
with researcher's from places like Stanford
to measure the efficacy, to constantly iterate on it.
So this isn't just pure entertainment
where it's like entertainment
that kinda looks kinda educational,
this is real education that happens to be engaging
and really entertaining and I think they've done a,
a really incredible job at that.
So let's see, other questions,
maybe time for, time for one question.
This is, so from YouTube, Roshan Arongdale asks,
my sister is weak in basic math
how do I help her?
So depending on her age one suggestion,
if she's, you know, mid elementary,
or a little older, or late elementary,
or middle school age, or even high school,
I actually recommend going on Khan Academy
and starting at the beginning.
Starting on early learning,
which I think she'll be able to go through quite quickly,
especially if she uses things like course challenges
and then go to things,
try to finish the arithmetic on Khan Academy
and then she could probably engage on her grade level,
depending what it is.
But with school closures the silver lining is
there might a little bit more time
to really go all the way back
and build those foundations.
I'm confident if your sister is listening
tell her that it's not that she's bad at math,
or not capable, or that math is hard,
it's just that she probably got
some gaps in her background and then now things
are making a little less sense.
But if she goes back, fills in those gaps,
not only will she find
that math is fun and interesting,
but she can be quite good at it.
So I think that's all of our time today
and time really does go by fast
when you're (laughing) having fun.
I wanted to thank Caroline.
We're gonna post information
about all of the amazing things
that Caroline and her team are doing already
and the live events they're going to be holding
over the weeks and maybe months to come
depending on how long this closure situation lasts.
And I just wanna remind everyone we are a not-for-profit,
everything we're doing is free, it's not commercial,
it's made possible through donations
from folks like yourself and we do genuinely need
that help to stay afloat.
I always tell people our budget is about the budget
of a large high school, but we are trying to serve
a decent chunk of humanity right now
especially through this school-closure period.
And Khan Academy is much more
than just me and Caroline, it's over 200 folks,
we have thousands of volunteers.
We have to spend millions of dollars
just on server hosting.
You can imagine there's tens of millions of people
who are depending on this every month right now.
So with that everyone, you know, stay safe,
stay socially distanced and just remember
we're all in this together and there's,
it's a hard time, but there's something beautiful
about this shared experience as well
and I really love being connected
to all of y'all in this way
and I, and our team will, we'll see ya tomorrow.