Your feel-good story of the day, and one example of how the Internet is being used to democratize learning and teaching for anyone with a Internet-enabled device.
The Khan Academy is…. a non-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.
All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.
Despite being the work of one man, Salman Khan, this 2100+ video library is the most-used educational video resource as measured by YouTube video views per day and unique users. What started out as Sal making a few algebra videos for his cousins has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history.
more via About | Khan Academy. I have no problems with the library being Math-focused right now; I think Math and Science can be one of the hardest subjects to teach, while simultaneously being one of the hardest things to teach yourself.
Salman Khan recently gave a TED talk, and was joined on stage by Bill Gates. You can hear his reasoning behind the Academy here:
Related articles
- Khan Academy aims to reinvent education through video (w/ video) (physorg.com)
- Khan Academy Leverages YouTube For Online Learning (gigaom.com)
- Khan Academy Changing the Way We Learn (inquisitr.com)
Mental Flowers 