Who would have thought that the single biggest threat to traditional K-12 education as we know it would come from the bedroom closet of a 33 year old young man with a back ground in banking and business. Meet Salman Khan of Khan Academy, if you haven't heard about him yet, just wait. Khan Academy is shaping up to be the single biggest education innovation of the 21st Century! Sal is the Founder, Executive Director, and Faculty of the Khan Academy. He started the Khan Academy as a way to tutor his cousins remotely--while he was a hedge fund analyst in Boston, and they were students in New Orleans. He started posting videos on YouTube, and more and more people kept watching. He left his hedge fund job and started Khan Academy with the mission of providing a FREE world-class education to anyone, anywhere. There are now over 2000 videos covering a wide variety of topics that have delivered over 38,676,154 lessons. In addition, he has also created an online application that lets you practice Math lessons and tracks your progress. As an educator who has seen millions of dollars in funding for educational technology spent without any lasting value, what Sal has accomplished is amazing! While the "establishment" is looking toward Charter Schools and School Choice as the answer to public school mediocrity, Salman is showing us a glimpse of the future of education and it just might be a " free-for-all".
Who would have thought that the single biggest threat to traditional K-12 education as we know it would come from the bedroom closet of a 33 year old young man with a back ground in banking and business. Meet Salman Khan of Khan Academy, if you haven't heard about him yet, just wait. Khan Academy is shaping up to be the single biggest education innovation of the 21st Century! Sal is the Founder, Executive Director, and Faculty of the Khan Academy. He started the Khan Academy as a way to tutor his cousins remotely--while he was a hedge fund analyst in Boston, and they were students in New Orleans. He started posting videos on YouTube, and more and more people kept watching. He left his hedge fund job and started Khan Academy with the mission of providing a FREE world-class education to anyone, anywhere. There are now over 2000 videos covering a wide variety of topics that have delivered over 38,676,154 lessons. In addition, he has also created an online application that lets you practice Math lessons and tracks your progress. As an educator who has seen millions of dollars in funding for educational technology spent without any lasting value, what Sal has accomplished is amazing! While the "establishment" is looking toward Charter Schools and School Choice as the answer to public school mediocrity, Salman is showing us a glimpse of the future of education and it just might be a " free-for-all".