Community reviews for Khan Academy

"After months of hearing about Khan Academy and seeing Salman Kahn interviewed on Charlie Rose, I got my first experience with the website. Although I looked specifically at the course on Similarity, many of my comments apply to the Khan Academy experience as a whole. First of all, the site looks clean, streamlined, without too many visual distractions. Secondly, it is not simply a collection of videos. Along the left side is a visual map that shows a sequence of videos and quizzes, which fills in as each is complete. This gives you the choice of either following the suggested path of learning, skipping around, and even going back if necessary. The videos and practice quizzes are well-sequenced, building one upon the other in a logical fashion. The videos themselves are clear and are engaging in subtle ways that are not gimmicky or distracting (no postulates turned into rhyme or song, for instance). The presenters voice is bright enough to keep your interest, but not so cheery as to be annoying. There were times when the pace went a bit too fast, but the nice thing about learning from a video is the ability to backup and watch a part over (and over if necessary!) again. And when the presenter makes and self-corrects a spelling error, the otherwise dry subject matter is given a human touch. The content was delivered in a straightforward, consistent way, but also included elaborations like “another way to think about this is....” which helps learners who may have a different learning style. The visual demonstration was also effective, using a consistent color patterns to help the learner focus on the important relationships between shapes, equations and postulates. And just as my attention started to lag a bit, I got a pop up awarding me 500 good listener points. After a few videos comes some practice quizzes. These keep learning positive, as they only acknowledge correct answers. There is a button for hints, and a link to the corresponding video if you need further help. Finally, there is a place for questions and comments from other viewers. I was pleasantly surprised that most comments were on topic and positive in nature (as opposed to the usual spam mess one sees on YouTube)."

"The United States overview history lessons were told with a good storytelling tone. This initially was engaging and held my attention. There were images that captured my attention, but I could not click or manipulate the visuals in any way to enhance the understanding. The majority of the videos in the series were over 10 minutes long. That was too long to maintain my attention through the rapid fire of historical events. The video Reconstruction to the Great Depression has a lot of rambling with added the repetitive use of um to detract from the flow history lesson. The lesson WWII to Vietnam had some questionable geographical graphics, if you are talking about major wars in Korea and Vietnam those should be clearly and accurately identified on a map. The video for Capitalism was mostly opinion based, which Khan admitted, but all scholars would not agree upon the facts or statements. I wanted the videos to be more interactive. There is no question that the videos have a traditional lecture tone. With the quick and sporadic overview of historical events, it is not surprising that viewers have questions or need additional clarification. There was a robust user base that answered the questions of viewers below the videos. This is a good use of crowdsourcing and ranking the comments. However, some of the viewer comments were more useful than others. A highly ranked comment was directions for how the user could play the game snake over the video. I am disappointed that there was no feedback to the viewer other than the point system and no checks for understanding. These would increase the educational or learning value."

The problems and practice section of Khan Academy (KA) are superb. I've watched students get deeply engaged in this work and be very productive in "teaching themselves" via trying out problems, taking hints, and learning from their mistakes and successes. The fact that it is free, so comprehensive, and has great engineering and design behind the scenes helps a lot. The "lectures" or videos that Sal produces are less "sticky" for students. They tend not to want to spend class time watching the videos. An accidental lesson learned from Khan Academy may be that students need challenges and problems, a few resources and the ability to collaborate more than they need "explanations" of how to do math.

I *wanted* to like Khan Academy, but it is so full of mistakes (2 + 2 = 2 is just one) and really bad pedagogy (mixing in advanced skills with basic lessons is just one example), *and* it is so highly promoted as awesome that it inspired me to try to do better on my own.

I've seen my students take to this program in a way they rarely do with other apps we've tried. They really enjoy completing pieces of their math universe. The teacher/coach side is also evolving into a very strong assessment piece for the teacher to see what students are proficient with and where they are struggling. I am interested to see how the new diagnostic exam at the beginning works out.

Im not a big fan of Khan Academy as the main way to educate students, but as a secondary resource I think its great. Content is important, which this website offers, unfortunately most educators just deliver content. Our students need more than content, which I know the developer of this website supports. I would love to see something similar but geared towards project based learning.

This is a tool mostly for individual development, but it can have other applications. I have used this tool on my own (to brush up on subjects outside my discipline), for advanced students working ahead, and sometimes as a guideline when I'm stumped on how to best setup a lesson plan. It also is great for when there is a student that would benefit from seeing something from a different point of view. This really is a tool mostly for individuals. I have found a couple of illustrations/demonstrations that were a good talking point in class, however I think the best way to use this tool is as a supplement to material for use outside the classroom. I like how well the lessons are split logically. So if the viewer is only unsure of a certain concept they can select only that lesson to watch. I do wonder though if the same technique (a charismatic instructor using real world examples to explain material in a logical and effective manner) would benefit from using a school aged person to conduct the video lesson.

The Khan Academy is revolutionary in its approach to delivering information to learners of all ages. If you have not used Khan Academy in your classroom yet, you and your students are missing out.

It has videos on almost any concept you could think of across the all curriculums, but the the math exercises and the section on learning to program are the two best features for classroom learning. There are over 400 math concepts that students get to practice from learning to tell time all the way up to the very basics of calculus. They have added some additional cool features that no allow a coach to recommend lessons which was not available as of spring 2013. Students like the points and badges that they could earn, they would get immediate feedback on the problems they missed, and you could easily track student progress and class progress though the tools that are available to a "coach". The one downside I have found is that some of the problem sets would become repetitive and ask the same problem 2 or 3 times per set of 8 questions. Students could work on problems from either a computer or mobile device and there is a way to work out the problem with in the browser using ink tools within the work space.

Khan Academy is a great resource for students who need more review and a different mode of instruction.