[lyaunzbe]

Man, I'd love to contribute to Khan Academy, especially since they've given me so much already. I can't count the number of times Sal's videos have helped me in my AP Physics and Calculus classes this year. It's too bad I'm still in high school.

I actually had an idea, a couple of weeks ago, that it would be really cool to implement some kind of functionality that brought together real time chat and a "blackboard" capabilities (Canvas and node.js?) to the site, so people could discuss certain topics and simultaneously draw out diagrams/problems/etc. I feel like Q.A. for homework/learning could be done a lot better then what we have currently right now (WikiAnswers, Yahoo Answers, etc). Good luck, I'm sure tons of awesome developers will jump at this opportunity.

[Radix]

Grockit, a test prep startup, does this. They're setup to give test questions to be answered in a given time frame with ongoing chat between room members and there is an optional white-board for drawing on.

The drawing section isn't built by them, it's actually built by an HN poster running, I believe, ExpatSoftware. You could probably make use of his project... Actually, I checked. They're just using Twiddla. I think Twiddla is pretty much what you want. You can free hand what you want and you have an etherpad a click away. Tying it in to KA would be left.

Kamens, is there a way to view all the unanswered questions on Khan Academy? I think it might receive a fair amount of traffic if there was.

[kamens]

Not at the moment, no. We're tackling some lower-hanging fruit, but this sort of community tool is obviously on our horizon.

[burrows]

http://www.mathim.com/ and http://typewith.me/ and http://www.mangamasters.com/paintchat/

[lyaunzbe]

Thanks, I didn't know about those. Typewith.me looks pretty well done. My friend and I actually used to use flockdraw when we wanted to draw free body diagrams and circuits. It would be interesting to see, though, how integrating a such a drawchat system into Khan Academy would play out, considering how fast the community is growing and the type of audience it is developing.

[burrows]

Would probably make sense for someone to just write a site agnostic 'drawchat' plugin.