Khan Academy Revolutionizing Education On YouTube
Salman Khan left his job as a hedge fund analyst to devote himself to fulfilling his dream for a future in which anyone, anywhere in the world with access to the Internet can get a world-class, free education on the web. Khan started the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to provide the world with free, high quality educational material. Khan has uploaded over 1,400 tutorials to YouTube so far, including math, physics, chemistry, finance and biology concepts. His vision is to make this material and more available to students around the globe.
Khan got the idea for the Khan Academy when he agreed to help his cousin with sixth grade math. He posted tutorials for her over YouTube, as they didn’t live in the same city, and he noticed that not only were his videos getting tons of views but that viewers were sending him testimonials telling him how much his videos were helping them with math. Kahn began to broaden the subject matter and concepts in his videos and the Khan Academy YouTube channel was born. He quit his job and is now working full time, without pay, on his project and is looking forward to covering an even broader range of subject matter to bring educational material to the world. He currently focuses mostly on math-related content, but hopes to start producing tutorials on virtually every subject, from grammar to history and everything in between.
Khan does not appear in his tutorial videos. He records his voice and used a Wacom tablet to write and draw out concepts on a black background. Khan has created all of the videos on the Khan Academy so far, but will surely have to enlist other teachers if he wants to broaden the subject matter of his YouTube school. He has also begun enlisting help to translate his videos into other languages so that he can reach an even broader range of students.
All sorts of people from all over the world have used Khan’s videos to learn new concepts as well as to supplement what they are learning in class, at both the high school and college level. However, one of the coolest things about the Khan Academy is that it brings high quality education to parts of the world where it is hard to come by. With the help of Khan, great education can be made available in third world countries at no charge. Khan says, “With just a computer and a pen-tablet-mouse, one can educate the world!” And if I may say so myself, this is incredibly exciting and important for our generation and those to come. Kudos to Khan and his academy, which has already begun to revolutionize the way we learn and bring educational material to the world.
Check out the video below and let us know what you think of Khan and his vision for a future in which everyone can receive a quality education in the comments!
