Here are some interesting facts about The ‘KHAN
ACADEMY’, brainchild of Salman Khan(And I am not talking bollywood here!), who started it as video based learning for
his cousins went on to be a pioneer in education sector.
1. Salman
Khan, is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School.
2. Khan
Academy is a non-profit educational organization.
3. Salman
Khan was a successful hedge fund analyst at Connective Capital Management till
2009, before he quit for starting Khan Academy.
4. He
has got a significant backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and
Google.
5. Khan
Academy has eclipsed MIT's Open Course Ware (OCW) in terms of videos viewed—its
YouTube channel has over 150 million total views, compared to MIT's 38 million.
It also has twice as many subscribers, at more than 320,000!
Impressive, isn’t it! I think it is.
Now why I am writing it under Principles of
Organization & Management is that as an organization it has redefined teaching,
learning & education and thus on the way applied various principles of organization
& management thereby providing me an opportunity to explore this perspective and
learn.
Let us explore
Vision:
Changing education for the better by
providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.
Tech-human conceptualization:
It has a library of
3200 videos covers K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and
physics, and even reaches into the humanities with playlists on finance and
history. Each video is a digestible chunk, approximately 10 minutes long, and
especially purposed for viewing on the computer.
Students can make use of our extensive video
library, interactive challenges, and assessments from any computer with access
to the web.
Khan Academy provides:-1. Complete custom
self-paced learning tool
2. A
dynamic system for getting help
3. A
custom profile, points, and badges to measure progress
Coaches, parents, and teachers have unprecedented
visibility into what their students are learning and doing on the Khan Academy.
1. Ability
to see any student in detail
2. A
real-time class report for all students
3. Better
intelligence for doing targeted interventions
Innovation:
The academy is an educational
transformation that de-emphasizes classrooms, campus and administrative
infrastructure, and even brand-name instructors.
Revenue model:
It is a not-for- profit organization with strong backing from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google. It also has contributions from various individuals and entities. Its resources are provided free of charge.
Creative problem solving:
Khan chose to avoid the standard format of a person standing by a whiteboard, deciding instead to present the learning concepts as if "popping out of a darkened universe and into one's mind with a voice out of nowhere" in a way akin to sitting next to someone and working out a problem on a sheet of paper
Strategies:
1. Easy Accessibility- Logging into the site can be done via a Google or a Facebook account for those who don't want to create a separate Khan Academy account.
2. Serving to different customer needs- web-based exercise system that generates problems for students based on their skill level and performance.
3. Increased Customer Satisfaction – Letting students earn badges as they learn which they can brag about amongst peers or Khan’s fellow customers.
4. Increasing Customer base – Translating Khan Academy’s content in different languages
There can be more aspects looked into to further enhance our learning from this wonderful initiative.
I am putting up 2 links for viewing this commendable effort and people response to the founder Salman Khan (not the Bollywood one but the other hero !)
Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Rethinking Learning with Salman Khan http://www.youtube.com/watch?
SALMAN KHAN
The Team - Some Members...
