These are questions that I got here from the North Carolina State University paper.
I'm just going to answer them in video format so
everyone can enjoy them. If they find them enjoyable.
Question number 1. Where did you get the idea of
making such a website? What was the inspiration or reason?
Forgive me if any of you are tired of hearing this
story. It really did start with my cousins [Naudia]
in particular. In 2004 I started tutoring her,
and really everything that is the Khan Academy now,
or at least a lot of it's initials stages,
were out of me as a tutor needing tools to help my cousin.
The first software, it was actually written before the first video,
I started working on it 2005. It was a way to
give my cousins, [Naudia] being one of them, and then
her brothers practice, for me to keep track of
what they were doing, and for me to be able to not
use the time that we had on the phone,
kind of doing all of the practice problems.
They can do it own their own.
Then I started making the videos, so
they could pause and repeat and watch a lot
of the stuff at their own pace at their own time.
We could use our in-person time, is was to remote tutoring,
but our in-person time to do the exact problems
they were having. It's been a very organic process
all the you get to last year where we got our
major funding. Once again it was what were our needs
of the students that we're hearing from on YouTube
that are messaging us. Even this whole notion
of what's happening and [unintelligible] and the pilots
and the other pilots were starting in this year.
We kind of thought, that eventually, we could us it
in schools, but it was one of these opportunities
that just happened through happenstance.
Where someone reached out to us and hey, what
would you do if you could do anything with a 5th grade classroom?
We told them, and that's what we've been doing.
There's the inspiration or the reason.
I guess I can give credit to my cousins,
and a little bit to my own ... when I was going
through schooling myself. I did sometimes feel
frustrated that we couldn't use class time in
a more interactive way, or that we couldn't learn
at our own pace. It really has been a very organic
and gradual process of lairing on things that
seem to make sense, building them, and seeing if they work.
We actually think we're still in the very early
stages of that process. We have a long way to go,
and a lot more things to experiment and test.
Question number 2. Where do you get all the videos from?
The simple answer to this first part of the question is,
we get them all from me right now. I am the only
faculty. I'm the only person on the site right now.
We have 2,500. I think we're even pushing 2,600
videos right now. The second part of the question.
Are the coaches allowed to upload their own personal videos?
Right now the coaches are not allowed to upload
their own personal videos. Obviously, they can
tell students independently at Khan Academy
they could watch those videos. This is something
we are very seriously looking at. Not just coaches,
we're very seriously looking at a way for people
to create their own Khan Academy experience
on top of our platform. That they could expose
to their students or to the world generally.
We hope they would expose them to the world generally.
Right now, it's just an engineering bottle-neck.
We don't have the bandwidth to do it, although
we think it could be a really powerful thing.
Closer to that, in terms to where do we get all
the videos? This is something that you expect to hear
a lot more from us soon. Some people might have
noticed that I have started to do some videos
experimenting with this interview form factor,
where I'm getting outside experts. I'm there as well.
I'm there as well talking to them about some
of these concepts, and them educating me.
You'll also see we're bringing on some full-time
faculty members in the humanities soon.
Who, I think have made some tremendous videos.
Their libraries are going to be interrogated soon.
I think people are going to really enjoy it.
The short answer, all the videos right now are
from me. In the next few months you're going to see
some other very talented teaches come into the mix
that we've really found to be rock stars.
You go out maybe another year, year and a half
I think you're going to have ways for coaches to
create or just people generally to create used
Khan Academy's more generalized learning platform.
It's an open question on how much that becomes
a main stream experience, or do we use crowd-sourcing
to curate the content to say what's good and
what's not. It's still an open question.
We haven't really figured that one out.
What is your target audience?
It's kind of a simple answer. I hope you don't
find that I'm not answering the question, but
it's really everybody. It's really anyone who ...
independent of the traditional schooling system
or the traditional hurdles people have to jump through.
It's anyone who wants to learn. Anyone who's curious
about the world. That's our target audience.
We see it. We get letters from people who are
in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 70s, who are learning for fun.
That is our target audience, but on top of that
we obviously care about the stakeholders in
other peoples learning's, teachers and parents.
We are also trying to make sure they find us to
be a very useful tool and their arsenal,
and hopefully a transformatinal tool.
Their arsenal to make their classes all that more
rich and interactive.
Number 4. In many cases, the students open some
social networking or other websites or play games
as soon as they sit in front of a computer.
I think that is true.
So, do you think online lectures education can
substitute the in-class way of teaching?
It depends what the in-class way of teaching is.
It's depends on what students motivations are.
It's true. Students like to go to Facebook or
social websites, or whatever else, and the reality
is that's getting in the way of not just online learning
that's getting in the way of learning period.
I'm sure that's getting in the way of traditional
homework and studying they have to do right now.
To some degree, the fact, that the studying is only
a click away makes it a little bit easier than the
fact that the studying is, go to your knapsack,
take out a text book, turn to page 543, read that
dense text, then open up your notebook, and do
every other odd problem. Whatever it is.
Whatever your homework assignment might be.
I actually think it lowers the threshold to starting
the actual the learning. I think it also lowers
it, because I would hope our content is viewed as
approachable content and content that focuses
the beauty of the learning as opposed to the
mechanical nature of the learning. I think when most
people are exposed to that they find it much more satisfying.
On a broad level, maybe, this is being a little too hopeful.
I think when content becomes interesting everyone
does feel better when their learning then when
they spend 5 hours stalking people on a social networking site.
I think once people experience it, their like
I actually enjoy it when I spend more time learning
than when I do other things. With that said,
it's an open question, and we don't claim to solve it.
Like I've answered in a previous interview,
if people are going to skip out ... when they go home
if their not going to do their assignments, or
if their not going to do their learning, I would
rather they skip out on lectures than skip out on doing problems.
That's where I think this whole notion of flipping
a classroom or whatever is important. If someone's not
going to do any work at home, whether it's watching
videos or doing traditional homework, when you
go to the classroom, I still think it's more important
that students do problems there with their peers,
and their teacher there, than getting this lecture
they may or may not be prepared for, or be able
to pay attention to, or they may not find engaging.
They never get to do the practice.
The idea obviously is that they use the human time
in the classroom for interaction, and then they go
home and there they do exercises and videos at their own pace.
It's not just watching lectures at home.
It's actually exercise and videos.
Whatever's appropriate at that stage of the learning process.
Question number 5. What according to you is the
future of online education? I don't think I answered
the second part of that first question.
So do you think online lectures education can
substitute the in-class way of teaching?
I think online lecturers education can substitute
the in-class way of lecturing. Especially, the
relatively non-interactive lectures that I've been
a part of in college, and the rest where it's
really a professor lecturing, and everyone taking
notes. There's very [demeanor] action.
I don't think it's a substitute for in-class discussion,
in-class simulations, in-class problem solving,
or in-class interaction. To take it a step further,
I think it's catalysis. I think online lectures
education solve these problems. Their not something
that's a substitute for in-class interaction,
their a catalysis for in-class interaction.
When you can get everything done at your own pace
at your own time, then that makes the conversation
you have in class, the projects, the experiments,
the expiration's you have in class that much more productive.
It frees up time for them. I think it's a catalysis for it, not a substitute.
Number 5. What, according to you, is the future
of online education? Will having lectures online
have any impact on the way students are taught in the class?
I'll answer the second part first.
It's kind of what I just touched on. Yes.
I think, right now, universities are all ready
telling their student you're not in high schools.
Go do the reading, read page 40 through 70 tonight,
and then come back to lecture the next day.
You'll get a better experience. Some students do it.
Some students don't. We think the videos are much
more approachable thing to have to do the night before.
Even if the student doesn't do it the night before,
the value is you always have it there.
Even if you don't do it the night before, in a
traditional hall right now, you go to class.
and your lost, because you didn't do the reading.
At least now you have the equivalent of a lecture
that's better, because it's granular and all the rest.
You can review when you need to do it.
Pause and repeat, review things from previous years.
It's going to have a way. It has a huge impact
the way students are taught in class. They will
no longer be lectured. That is what's happening outside.
I think our biggest role ... I can't emphasis this enough.
We are all about taking lecture out of the class.
We're not saying lecture is the best way to learn.
We're just saying let's take it out of the class.
We're saying that interaction with teachers and
your peers are the best way to learn.
We hope to be a catalysis for that.
In terms of what is the future of online education?
Open question. We don't even know what the future
of Khan Academy is. It's something we're consistently
experimenting with. Be open minded about what works
and what doesn't, then adapting. It's not something
that I'm 100% sure of. I hope there's a future
5 or 10 years where anyone can go online and get a deep
learning or understanding of anything. On top of that,
I hope there's a way to prove what they know.
They can credential. They can say look, I don't
need to take Algebra anymore, because I've proven
that I understand this. It could be a traditional
exams or it could be ... this is what's interesting
about online. Maybe it's something with crowd-based
oral exams, where if you want to become a level
5 Algebraist. You're level 4 right now,
there's 5 out of 5 level 5 people have to say
you're ready for level 5. Or, ready to be deemed level 5.
You do a Skype or meet up, or who knows what
it might be to be evaluated. There's even ways online
education to bring the best of physical education
into a scalable rate. Right now, the goal standard
of examination is the oral examination.
It only happens during PhD qualifiers, because they
don't have resources to do it for the undergraduates
or regular K through 12 level. I think with crowdsourcing
we could start to explore some really interesting ways.
We don't know the answers there.
Number 6. With respect to your article in the Wall Street Journal
regarding the Khan Academy, could you please
elaborate the concept of taking lectures at home
and doing homework in class?
This is something I really want to emphasis,
because this really caught on after I gave a talk
about flipping the classroom. The idea there was
I mentioned is that I made these videos.
I started getting letters from teachers who said
hey you made the videos? The teachers then started
to assign the videos as homework, and then using
class time for actual homework for actually doing problem solving.
Which, I think is super important. That was halfway through the
[temp] talk. What we're trying to do with Khan Academy,
is really go a step further than that.
Whether your at home, in a classroom, or on the train,
learn at your own pace. Whether, it's watching videos
or doing exercises. Whatever's appropriate for you.
Learn at your own pace. Then, your teacher will have
data on what you've been working on and maybe
whether you are stuck. So, when you go with that
interaction with the teacher, if you don't need
any help maybe some of it is still working
continuing to work at your own pace with
videos and exercises. The teacher will know when
you do need help. Even if you're shy they'll have
that data, and they can come up to you and hopefully
have a productive intervention with you.
What we're saying is, it's not so much as a pure flip,
we think it's a step beyond that. Everyone works
at their own pace at their own time,
mastering concepts before they move on.
The real crocks of what the Khan Academy is
about is making that class time as interactive
as possible. Leveraging that human in the room,
whether it's the teacher or your peers.
So, they can do what humans are best at which is
mentor, diagnose, understand what exactly is
the students problem is, and take it to the next level.
Do what the videos and exercises could not do.