Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by exch 5501 days ago
Have you guys in any way been inspired by Salman Khan's (khanacademy.org) work? Perhaps a cooperation could benefit both of your organizations, and consequently the rest of the world.

Improving education is always a very laudable goal. And even though I see the value of having many parties to chose from, I think in this case a lot more can be achieved by reducing fragmentation of the available tools and sources and having potentially major players join forces.

2 comments

Absolutely, we share many principles with the Khan Academy in our approach to the classroom. We're just trying to solve the problem in a different way.

- David, Co-Founder, Open

I don't get the sense from the Khan literature that they intend for "normal" teachers to record their own lessons. I could be mistaken?
It's not portrayed in that way, no. Khan Academy seeks dedicated movie makers.

Letting the teacher do it instead can have its benefits. Certainly when it comes to teaching a customized or niche curriculum that simply isn't available on a place like khanacademy.org.

However, I do think that having videos recorded by people who excel at that kind of stuff (like Salman himself) also makes a lot of sense. A good voice and a clear way of explaining potentially difficult subjects can not easily be done by everyone.

One would say that a teacher should be able to do it, but talking to a computer screen is a lot different than talking to a classroom. And from my own experiences I know for a fact that not nearly all of them have the charm and capacity to convey a subject in an understandable and inspiring manner.