Anybody KHAN do it!!

 

Well, this week I received a bunch of messages from teachers and friends alike.  "Did you see the 60 minute video on Khan Academy?"  Now, I have seen Khan Academy before, linked some of the videos to my lessons, peruse the app once and a while...............but what was all of the hype about?  Why so many messages in such little time?  I'm finally just accepting the fact that I am the geeky friend of some people.  Whatever the case, it was time to see what this video was all about.

 

So after watching it, I went into the website and started playing with the program.  I noticed first of all that there was a lot more to it than just a series of videos.  Although there is an enormous library of videos teaching the subject at a surface level, there are also a lot of skills tests that are associated to a lot, but not all of the videos.  See if your an expert at addition and if not, you can watch a video and go back to practice your skill.  A little energy bar lights up as you get questions correct and points are accumulated for something.  If you get questions wrong you lose progress in the energy bar.  You need to fill the energy bar in order to show some sign of mastery.  There were also many other incentives dealing with "badges".  Collect badges and become elite.

 

Anyway, I was interested from it on a teacher's end as well.  So I opened up both of my google accounts, that's right, I said it, both of them.  One as a student, one as a teacher.  I wanted to see how easy it was to manage and as I predicted, it was very easy.  It was easy to create classes, add and delete students from the class and it was easy to see their progress.  It would collect all of the data that they accrued while they were on the site.  How many attempts at a problem, how long they were on an exercise or video, whether or not they need help or if they showed mastery.  It had everything.  They are currently linking everything to the national common core and trying to get their video collection done for all of their skills lessons.  It was quite extensive.

 

I am not one to wait around, so today I tried it out with the students since I've been having them complete any assignments on a black and white page in a while.  They loved being able to try it out.  They were into trying to get the little energy bar up so that they showed completion.  One girl must have done over 50 problems and it gave me time to work with her.  It did not have a video associated with it, but I did not mind showing them how to do a couple of their problems.  The more a student gets wrong, the more it seems they need to get right to show mastery.  Later on, I checked out the progress report as a teacher and it had everything that I witnessed.  Even the girl who was having trouble was red flagged on my account.  It wasn't hard to get them on it and to start having them practice.

I can easily see this type of skills based format become a main part of education.  I like the idea that they are receiving the surface level teaching from someone else along with a quick practice.  Watching some of the videos on the site it shows how to implement it into the classroom and I can see me do something of this nature.  Have students work at their own pace until a few of them reach a certain checkpoint and then have them go a little deeper into it with an authentic problem.  On the other end, in use with an authentic unit, this could be the overt knowledge that they get and then can create something with their knowledge..........a rap........or a video.  Something.

There are a ton of other videos in Science and Economics as well.  I'm not sure if they are as streamlined as the math, but they are there as a one stop shop.  Pretty cool stuff.  I definitely see me utilizing it in the future.