Khan Academy

My father actually introduced me to this site, http://www.khanacademy.org/. It claims to be the beginning of an educational revolution (though maybe not in those words). There seem to be two goals, the first being to make education accessible to all people, and the second being to allow the possibility of "flipping the classroom". A good introduction talk is the video on their main page, Salman Khan talk at TED 2011 (from ted.com), which is also on youtube. 


I am using the Khan Academy exercises to brush up on my arithmetic. Yes, I fit the stereotype of a math major, in that I can do integrals faster than division, and derivatives faster than addition. Plus, my basic arithmetic is frequently wrong; I don't exactly blame the fact that upper-level math and physics use variables to the near exclusion of concrete numbers, but it is a contributing factor.  But anyway, back to Khan Academy: I personally have not watched any videos, but the exercises have a good interface and are quite straightforward. I particularly like the badges that can be earned, as I can of course get 10 in a row ("proficient" level of an exercise) if I take enough time. Badges can be earned for speed when getting 5, 10, 20, or 42 in a row correct in an exercise, and that motivates me to actually improve my speed. Maybe, with enough practice, I'll be as fast as an elementary school student. But probably not. 

In any case, I think that the idea of flipping the classroom sound really interesting. As a student who has done well in classes with minimal lecture via reading the book, not having to listen to the lecture if I think I've got it but being able to go back to one, on video, if I discover I was overly optimistic, would be cool. I'm waiting for them to start putting up exercises for physics, finance, and everything else so I can run through courses. My biggest hope is that they cover AP/college intro physics and do exercises. This is because I tutor general physics, and every year my department tries another online exercise program, all of which have annoyed all the tutors and students I know. The Khan Academy exercises are the most straightforward I've seen, and the idea that the professor could simply expect students to reach proficiency, rather than grading them on a particular 10 questions, sounds great, especially for all those pre-med students panicking about needing an A: with enough effort, at least their homework would always be at that level.