Kahn Academy, the brainchild of Salman Kahn, describes itself as "an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for 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."
Kahn began by agreeing to mentor his young cousin who was struggling in her studies. Due to their geographical separation he utilized the internet by creating a series of YouTube video "lessons" for her. As time went on he noticed that more and more "guests" were viewing his videos and commenting on how helpful they were. The Academy was born and today includes a library of over 3000 videos aimed at learners of all ages.
While many of those 3000 are well above the primary grade levels of our kiddos the concept is one of educational "building blocks" and allows for children (and adults) of all levels to advance at their own pace. As Kahn's background and interests are focused on Math and Science it's no surprise that so too is the focus of the Academy. The vast majority of the content is Math and Science centric (which in this day and age is certainly not a "bad" thing) although recent offerings are expanding the focus to other genres of education.
The renowned CBS show, "60 Minutes", recently featured the Kahn Academy in a March, 2012 episode. Please take a few minutes to view the video as it will provide a very good understanding of how and why it works. Click on the "Show full screen" icon (bottom right corner of player) and use ESC when video finishes to return here.
As you have seen, the offerings are almost limitless - beginning with basic Math lessons appropriate for our First Grade Learners and progressing all the way to topics that may just challenge their Teacher and Parents.
Here is a link to the "About" page of the Kahn site which will provide some additional info and another video which demonstrates how to most effectively utilize the site. Links on this page will open in a new tab in your browser. Closing that tab when you are done should return you here.
Once you are comfortable, and hopefully excited about getting your young learner started, here's a link that will take you to the beginning of the basic Math section at Kahn. As you will see there are over 200 video "lessons" starting at 1+1= and progressing on through Fractional Exponents - enjoy!
Please note that when the video starts the "blackboard" will be black and you will hear Sal's voice but see no video - don't panic, that's the way it's supposed to be.
Another site that I find invaluable and a veritable font of knowledge is TED.com. TED is an acronym which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. In their words TED is where " The two annual TED conferences, in Long Beach/Palm Springs and
Edinburgh, Scotland, bring together the world's most fascinating
thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives
(in 18 minutes or less)."
" On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 900 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week."
Not surprisingly, Sal Kahn was, as one of the "world's most fascinating thinkers and doers" invited to speak. Here's the video:
The "talks" page on the TED site provides a tremendous search function wherein you can locate presentations on virtually any topic of interest or by the speakers name. You can find the list here:
These two sites provide links to TED talks that are specifically geared to education and will get you started exploring the wonderful world of TED. Be sure to check out the other areas of each site as well for additional tips and links.
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