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Voiceover: All right, we're on question,
on this one right over here.
We often hear people say if you're teaching math
in this country, there's no way you haven't
heard of Salman Khan.
That's a little bit surreal to me if that's true.
How does your Khan Academy model work
for less concrete subjects, say creative writing?
It depends where you want to go on the spectrum
into kind of subjective subjects.
I think if we go into something like history,
if there are lectures,
and clearly there are history lectures,
I've experienced many of them,
we think, once again, that those shouldn't
necessarily happen during class time;
that those are better at the student's pace,
at the student's time.
Then if you get them out of the way,
using something like the Khan Academy,
then class time can have a richer discussion.
On top of that, right now our exercise platform
for the math, it generates math problems,
it's harder for a computer to automatically
generate a history question, or even, frankly,
some types of math questions.
So what we think we can do is probably create
a repository of questions that have appropriate
data with them: How hard are they?
How long does it take someone to do?
How relevant are they to a specific topic?
We can quiz people on topics like history so that,
we don't have that yet but that's something
that we would like to do in the not too far future,
so that someone can, with the lectures,
get a basic scaffold of their understanding
of history through the videos,
and they can get practice so that they make sure
that they at least have the basic,
they understand when World War I was,
when World War II is,
what's the difference between the League of Nations
and the UN, and all of these type of things.
So when they go to class time,
if they have access to a classroom,
the classroom can be there for really rich discussion
and the teacher or the professor knows,
because they're going to have data
based on how people perform on the Khan Academy,
what videos they watch and how they perform on the questions,
the teacher will know how prepared the class is
for a richer discussion.
For something like creative writing,
and creative writing, I'd put that probably with
music composition and art, painting art, or studio art,
things that are purely creative,
I would say that if there are any lectures,
so if right now in a creative writing class,
there are teachers giving basic lectures on
just things to think about,
we think that those things can be taken
out of class time, that those can be done in a video.
I'm probably not the right person to do it,
but we'll be able to find people
who can do those creative writing lectures.
Also, even in creative writing,
there is a basic skill set that you want to have
in order to be a respectable creative writer;
basic grammar, vocabulary,
doing a critical analysis of other writing.
Some of that can be done in a video form factor.
Everything we want to do is to enable
the class time to be all about writing and getting feedback
and getting assessment and critically analyzing
other peoples' work so it's actively ...
It's activity-based work as opposed to just
listening to a lecture.
Creative writing, we don't have any,
I can imagine there will probably be some videos eventually
for maybe writing generally; grammar, vocabulary,
some forms of critical analysis.
What I think we could do eventually for critical writing,
and once again, this is completely on the drawing board
and something we won't be able to get to for the near term,
but I think you can do a model where Khan Academy
has creative writing projects and students write creative,
they write essays and they write short stories
and they write poetry and members
of the Khan Academy community can give them feedback
on how they did and they can assess
how good the writing was, and the students themselves
will assess other people's writing.
I think if we can do something like that,
once again, it will become a tool where we can automate
a lot of the overhead of trying to coordinate
who's going to assess whom's work and all of the rest,
and then you can, once again, use class time
with as much human interaction as possible.
I don't want to claim that we've solved that problem,
but I suspect that there are ways.
One thing I want to make clear in this interview
is that we aren't married to a particular type of technology.
We aren't saying it has to be a black background
with Sal scrawling in pastel colors
and just talking about a subject.
We aren't married to the idea that you have to have
a knowledge map that's structured that way.
Our number one goal is how can we make a student's
learning experience as productive as possible?
And how can we make that scarce time with the teacher,
with the professor, and with the student's peers
in that classroom, how can we make that as rich
and productive as possible?
That's what drives all of our thinking.
Over time, I suspect in 10 years I might not recognize
a lot of what Khan Academy is, but I'll be very
excited because it's going to be empowering
a lot of those basic core principles.
We're always on the lookout for things that can do that.
In something like creative writing, it's true,
we don't offer something right now.
History we do offer a few videos
and we'll probably have a question bank
in the not too far off future.
But for creative writing, we want to explore that space.
We do eventually want to empower
even the creative writing classrooms.
Next question.
You said that most educational software
loses sight of the end user.
What should the people in charge of purchasing
these materials understand about them?
It's a very simple idea.
I would say if you are in the decision-making role
of purchasing materials, and this is true
whether you're in education or anything,
don't just be impressed by the polish
of what the sales person tells you,
or the fact that other districts are doing it,
or when you flip through the book
it seems to have fancy graphics and it seems to be expensive
and it seems to meet all of the State standards.
I think the best thing that anyone can do is say,
"You know what?
"Let me take out this book,
"or let me take out this piece of software
"and let me try to learn from it."
Pick a subject that, if you're the school's
principal or the district superintendant
or whoever you are, say,
"You know what, I'm a little rusty on systems of equations.
"Let me see if I can learn systems of equations
"from this book, and let me see if it's really
"that dramatically different than the older textbook,
"or if the software's dramatically different
"than the textbook."
That's really the best way to see if it's effective.
In fact, I think that's true about assessing anything.
I think all of us have experienced that sometimes,
even amongst teachers, there could be
a very flashy presentation.
And not just teachers, videos even.
There could be a very flashy presentation.
If you look at it superficially, you say,
"Oh my god, this is going to be good instruction,"
but you're not actually trying to learn from,
or that thing might not actually teach you.
The more basic lecture, or the more basic video,
oftentimes might do a better job at teaching you.
So the real way to assess something
is to actually try to learn from it.
I'm not saying that flashy is necessarily bad,
I'm just saying that flashy is not necessarily good.
A lot of us, it's just easier to assess something
very quickly saying, "Oh, look, that looks polished;
"that looks like there's a lot of money spent into it,
it must be good," but the reality is
try to actually learn from it
and you'll find that some of the more basic things
can often do better.
I encourage anyone who's looking at anything like that
is to question their assumptions.
Does a calculus textbook have to have 1,000 pages in it?
Does it have to even be a hardcover book?
Why don't you separate it into multiple chapters?
All of these questions I think people ...
They all boil down to the basic principle that you
should just try to learn from that content yourselves
and if you learn better from that content
and you find that content engaging
and you find it's something that you can engage with,
it's likely that the students will be able to.
If you can't and if it's just flashy
and looks polished, it's likely that the students
won't be able to either.
Next question.
At the heart of the Khan Academy's philosophy
is the importance of enabling students
to learn at their own pace.
What happens when these students enter the work force?
Do they work, perform surgery, try a case,
analyze data, or even teach at their own pace?
Yes.
I think the learning at your own pace
is exactly what happens in the real world.
Every job I've been at, there was no 30-person
classroom where everyone was moved ahead at the same time.
First of all, it was a lot of learning on your own.
You had to figure out what needs to be learned.
There wasn't anyone holding your hand.
You had to learn at your own pace.
You work at a firm, you have to figure out what's important,
then you have to go, usually at most firms,
ask the right questions from the right people
and then proceed at your own pace.
You actually see that; that is actually the reality
in most fields.
You learn from experience and from your own inquiry,
and that tends to happen at your own pace.
No one forces you along until you have ...
And you don't force yourself along
until you've mastered something.
So, yes, I actually think that's why so many
students, right now, suffer when they go into
the work force is that they're so used to being
kind of shepherded along, kind of as a cohort,
that all of a sudden, when they're thrown into
the work environment and all of a sudden
you have to decide when it's time
to ask the boss for a promotion,
you have to decide when you think
you're ready to go back to grad school,
you have to decide when you think
you're ready to start your own business.
Some people struggle when they're not being told
now you're going to go to 12th grade,
now you're going to go to college,
so I think that's an added benefit.
When you give people at a young age,
if you give them control of their learning,
if you make them self directed,
that's a skill that's going to translate
really well and really empower them
once they enter the workforce.