[EzGraphs]

To Quote Martin Fowler

"Often when you come across something new it can be a good idea to overuse it in order to find out it's boundaries. This is a quite reasonable learning strategy. It's also why people always tend to overuse new technologies or techniques in the early days. People often criticize this but it's a natural part of learning. "

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&#...

It is good to see some studies being done in this area (even if the one in the article is not particularly rigorous). I am convinced that there is tremendous value in the new online opportunities (Khan Academy, Stanford, Coursera, Udacity, etc), but there are limits to what they can accomplish. For one thing, an online course being done individually requires a higher level of student discipline than a learning activity involving the personal interaction of a teacher. My mind is less likely to wander when a teacher is staring me down :).

[Maxious]

As mentioned in the paper, there are Khan Academy "coaching" tools for monitoring the students. The site allows you to monitor the relative progress of the students so if one started to slow down you could pick them up on that: http://www.khanacademy.org/images/class-report-medium.png

[EzGraphs]

Good point. This does imply that the teacher is watching the monitor rather than helping another student and then actively intervenes. So it is likely a different dynamic than a classroom where a teacher is observing the whole class at once and can take a somewhat more subtle action (i.e. speak louder in a direction of a student who is falling asleep). Khan academy may well be much more effective. It would be great to see studies that make clear comparisons of where it is most effective.