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Many people have already heard Salman Khan's story
He started uploading mini-lessons on YouTube to teach math remotely, from Boston
to his little cousin in New Orleans, then in seventh grade.
Those lessons underwent a boom in popularity and have since been watched by over 18 million students around the world.
They served as a pattern and framework for the Khan Academy, now sponsored by Bill Gates himself,
since he adopted them to tutor his children.
I would also like to share with you that my own daughter took a virtual class during her tenth-grade year of high school
without having to attend a classroom. There is no doubt that YouTube has turned into an amazingly powerful pedagogical tool
that promises to bring millions of children to a new level of education.
To speak more in detail about this, we've invited Miss Internet to join us, the technology expert Silvina Moschini.
It is our pleasure to have you on the program.
So... well, I believe this is the future, right?
That Internet has come not only to revolutionize but to democratize worldwide education. what's your perspective about it?
Exactly, Mercedes. As you know, by having access to the Internet, kids in remote areas
even in locations where attending school is almost impossible can still benefit from education,
from one of the highest levels of education, over the Internet. Just like Bill Gates' children do
exactly as you mentioned before, any person anywhere on the planet can benefit.
And this is an amazing, huge advantage, because by means of Internet they acquire knowledge
that would otherwise be out of their reach. In this way, we succeed in closing the digital gap,
and we open up at the same time crucial opportunities for the personal and career development of all humanity.
Now, the good news is that the Khan Academy is expanding into Latin America
and we have a similar case today, Professor Julio Alberto Rios Gallego. Please give us some further details about "Profe" Julio.
Profe Julio is from Colombia. He is a math professor, head over heels in love with math and technology,
and he created his own channel on YouTube to help students understand
how learning math can be made easier.
And he is not the only one, many people are embracing new opportunities in so-called social media,
on user-generated content networks. They envision opportunities to disseminate their expertise
and their experiences, and offer their talents to many people around the world.
A second interesting case is Educatina, a kind of virtual university,
to assign a definition to it, but in fact this is not a formal university but an Internet site, as with Khan University,
where there are different subjects parents can choose from to help children study,
take tests and interact within a social network developed
and conceptualized for children's educational development and growth.
And does Educatina support Spanish?
One hundred percent. It is a Latin American social network, the most important educational site in the region today.
It has the full backing of different educational organizations and it is completely free.
The URL is educatina.org, accessible to all, to make sure parents can help their children do their homework
and study during summer, here in the United States,
or in winter, in the Southern Cone and have the amazing opportunity to learn together.
By the way, we are watching at this very moment a video of the famous, already popular "Profe Julio," and something comes to my mind
I would like to ask you about our Latin-American universities, such as UNAM, and Andes University.
Which ones are adapting these technologies that are currently hot topics in education?
The two universities you mentioned have a huge impact on YouTube.
I mean...as you certainly know, here in the United States, teaching over the Internet is a common thing, but in Latin America
it's still growing and becoming more popular.
YouTube as a channel is reaching more of the population every day and supplementing that with so many more resources,
such as educational platforms that allow people to earn a college degree
without even having to leave home. This is not only for the digitally-born generation that almost instinctively manages iPads,
smart phones and computers with so much greater ease than many of us,
but also for any person that wants to have access to education they can do it, regardless of where they are,
across Internet platforms available from many universities.
Finally, Silvina, what looks surprising to me, and what I find almost chilling,
is that a billion people watch videos on YouTube every month,
one billion people. As far as I know, there is no television channel, in any country,
reaching an audience of that size. Therefore, we speak of a powerful technology,
a technology that is here to stay and that will hopefully be used to do only good.
Many many thanks Silvina, what a great pleasure to have you here. You know how much I love to have you on the program,
and I encourage you to be our guest again soon, with more interesting tech news.