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  • >>presenter: Good afternoon, everyone. Let's get started. It's an honor introducing, hosting

  • Khan Academy today, here at Google. We have three wonderful guests here. Sal, who's the

  • founder, and Shantanu, who is the President and COO, and Marcia, who is a software engineer

  • of Khan Academy. I learned about Khan Academy about a year ago. I wasn't sure how, just,

  • it also comes with a lot of comments, also like people appreciating. I wasn't sure just

  • how this video is going to be theoretical as far as personal education is concerned.

  • So I tried it myself and I guess the first thing that I noticed was that it almost seems

  • that he was having more fun teaching me than I was having fun listening to him. [audience

  • laughter] He is so passionate about teaching. And I intentionally chose a non-technical

  • topic, which I always hated, like history. And I watched through all the videos and it

  • was just like glass and ice. At a very certain level, I realized why it works. With that,

  • I will actually give it to Chris Uhlik. He will formally introduce Sal. He has been working

  • with Khan Academy over the past year and he has actually helped them get a $50,000 grant

  • from Microsoft Research and he also helped them get two million dollars from Google,

  • as part of the 10 to the 100th Project. So, with that, I'll give it to Chris.

  • [applause]

  • >>Chris Uhlik: Hey, so, I have four children, ages eight through fifteen, and we homeschool

  • them. My wife is very interested in education technology. She has a degree in education

  • technology and it's illegal to experiment on humans, so she made her own.

  • [laughter]

  • And we've been basically educating our kids using 100 percent online materials. Every

  • kid's got a computer; they spend all day at the computers and then they go off to physical

  • education classes outside the home and stuff like that. So, she's a great student of what

  • kind of education technologies are out there in the world. We buy everything; she researches

  • everything well. Just over two years ago, she sent me a link to this Khan Academy. She

  • said, "Hey, check this out. This one's pretty cool and itís free." And I started watching

  • a few videos. I watched the banking crisis explanation videos. And I was like, "This

  • stuff is really, really good." And I had been thinking about what are a few of the really

  • big, high impact projects we can do in the world, like fixing carbon dioxide emissions,

  • educating the people in the world. These are some of the huge problems where you can really

  • totally transform the future. And I firmly believe that doing this for free, so that

  • everybody in the world has access to education materials, by taking advantage of the leverage

  • that technology offers, the ability to take one lecture given by one guy and then have

  • a 100,000 people watch it over the next few months. And Sal's done 18 hundred little capsule

  • lectures and they have a typical number of views--around a hundred thousand each--40

  • thousand here, a million there, give or take. So, he's reaching, right now, about two million

  • people a day.

  • >>Salman Khan: A month, unique a month.

  • >>Chris: Unique a month. The University of California has .2 million, right? So, he's

  • reaching ten times the University of California with his own efforts, a few people helping

  • him, and a free video hosting service, right? So that's the power of technologies like YouTube

  • and AppEngine to let people build incredibly impactful, valuable things for free. So, a

  • year ago, I was working on this education project. It wasn't Microsoft Research that

  • gave him the 50K, by the way. It was Google Research.

  • [laughter]

  • And I also helped the Google 10 to the 100 team decide and figure out how to give them

  • one fifth of the total prize, which is two million dollars. And I think he's gotten some

  • significant backing from the Gates Foundation and from John and Ann Doerr, and a few others.

  • So, he's able now to really commit full-time and actually hire people and expand and he's

  • getting some serious publicity help. That publicity has caused him to grow a factor

  • of 50 in the past year. He was getting something like, 40,000 views a month a year ago; he's

  • getting two million a month right now. And that's just incredible and it's probably going

  • to continue accelerating at that kind of pace for a while. You can look forward to most

  • people on the planet having seen a Khan Academy video in the next couple of years. That's

  • impact. So, we're gonna start the talk. There's a Dory page at go/khanacademy. There's gonna

  • be a lot of kind of question and answer period at the end. There's a microphone in the middle.

  • Go up and ask your questions at the end. Don't interject and I'd like to introduce the Linus

  • Torvalds of education.

  • >> Salman Khan: [laughs]

  • [audience laughter]

  • He's gonna transform the operating system of the education future. Salman Khan.

  • [laughter]

  • >>Salman Khan: Thank you, thank you.

  • [applause]

  • Actually ñ I don't want to be -- how many of you all saw the Ted talk that came out

  • a week or so ago? Ok, I don't wanna bore y'all, but some of y'all haven't seen it, but there

  • will be a little bit of an overlap. And since you don't know the structure of this, I'm

  • gonna do a quick overview and feel free to interrupt me at any time, or ask a question.

  • And then we'll just open up to Q&A cause that'll be more fun. We'll learn things. But just

  • to start off, as Chris mentioned, Khan Academy started off me making videos. So, I'll show

  • all a little bit of a video montage to see a feel for what the videos are like, and

  • we'll show you what else we're up to.

  • [pause]

  • [video plays]

  • >>Salman Khan:(speaking on video) So, the hypotenuse is going to be five. This animal's

  • fossils are only found in this area of South America; nice, clean band here and this part

  • of Africa. We can integrate over the surface, and the notation usually is a capitol sigma.

  • National Assembly that create The Committee of Public Safety, which sounds like a very

  • nice committee. Notice, this is an aldehyde and it's an alcohol. Start differentiating

  • into effector and memory cells. A galaxy. Hey, there's another galaxy. Oh, look, there's

  • another galaxy. And for dollars is their 30 million plus the 20 million dollars from the

  • American manufacturer. If this does not blow your mind, then you have no emotion.

  • [laughter]

  • [end video clip]

  • >>Salman Khan: So, that's a feel for what we're doing. And as Chris mentioned, we are

  • now -- there's now on the order of 2200 videos. I made five this morning. And they're--

  • [laughter]

  • ten minutes, you know. And they now cover everything from basic arithmetic all the way

  • to vector calculus and the French Revolution, and all the rest. And we're reaching -- actually

  • a month ago, we were reaching a million unique students a month. Now, weíre reaching two

  • million unique students a month just with the latest buzz. So that's kind of where we

  • are now, but there's a lot more that we're up to. Yíall have very generously given us

  • two million dollars, so I view this as a progress report.

  • [laughter]

  • But before I go into that, I'll talk a little bit about how I got started. And asall

  • know, I was a hedge fund analyst five years ago in Boston. Then, we moved the firm out

  • here in Northern California. It was actually a two-person hedge fund and my boss -- his

  • wife became a professor at Stanford, so he moved to Palo Alto. And I was tutoring my

  • cousins remotely in New Orleans and started working with one cousin, then another cousin,

  • then another cousin. Before I knew it, I had this cohort of cousins all over the country

  • and I was looking for a way to scale myself up. And one of my buddies [Sulfaka Ramzana]--I

  • should give him credit--I was literally hanging out at his house, showing him how I was tutoring

  • my cousins and all that, and he's like, "You know, why don't you put some of your lectures

  • on YouTube?" And I said, "Oh, that's silly. YouTube's for dogs on skateboards. It's not

  • for--

  • [laughter]

  • It's not for a serious learning. But once I got over the idea that it wasn't my idea,

  • I--

  • [laughter]

  • said, "I'll take a shot at it." And I remember the first video, I think, and you can go there,

  • literally, it's like November 6th, 2006. It was greatest common divisor, least common

  • divisor. One of those. I wanted to teach my cousins fractions. I was like, "Oh what do

  • they have to know? And the negative numbers." And I put in like, 20 or 30 videos and this

  • has turned into a bit of a one-liner, but it's true. The very first feedback my cousins

  • gave me were that they preferred me on YouTube than in person. And so, I felt like this was

  • something to do. So I kept making the videos. I started getting feedback from people all

  • over the country, saying how it helped them. "Hey, this helped me on my exam. I passed

  • the exam." But some of them were like, "Hey, I was gonna drop out of high school until

  • these videos". Or "This motivates me to go to college and become an engineer." Or "This

  • is the only reason why I can, now that I'm retiring from the military, I can feel comfortable

  • going back to the community college." So, I was excited. So I kept going. And along

  • the way, the site grew and then the other thing that happened--actually this is what

  • most people don't realize-- sometimes, I switch around the story because it sounds better

  • when I started the videos. But I actually started on the software side. If you rewind

  • before I even wrote that first piece ñ I recorded that first video, when I was tutoring

  • my cousins, I would just point them to random websites. I was like, "Hey, I just found some

  • website run by this university and there's ten good problems on fractions. Why don't

  • you do those problems and we'll go over them tomorrow?" And the next day, I'd say, "Hey,

  • now you do the problems?" She'd be like, "Yeah, yeah, I did them." I was like, "How many did

  • you get right?" She said, "Yeah, I think I got them all right." I was like, "Oh, when

  • did you do the problems?" "Oh, yeah, I did 'em like at night."

  • [laughter]

  • It wasn't that ñ it wasn't that informative. So I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna write my own

  • problems." And then she would run out of problems. There's these little worksheets that you see

  • all over the web, like ten problems and then you're done. So I wrote these really primitive

  • JavaScript generate problems, as many as you want, in adding fractions, or adding negative

  • numbers, or multiplying fractions, or whatever. And so that was -- the premise was, "I'll

  • give you as many problems as you need until you get ten in a row" and I'll show you what

  • they look like in a second, "and you'll get hints for them." And before I even made the

  • first video, I thought that was the solution. That was like, "this is all someone needs

  • to do math." Because on the exercises you have hints and all of that. But then, once

  • the videos took off, it was just a better use of my time to make five videos a day rather

  • than one module every five days. So, that kind of ñ it got orphaned a little bit. And

  • actually, one thing that happened is, I left it out there and I had this 50 dollar a month

  • webhosting and at some point, there were too many people using that software, so I just

  • turned it off -- which is probably a bad idea if you're ever starting a business. [laughter]

  • It's probably a signal that you shouldn't. Maybe spend a hundred dollars on your webhosting.

  • So when the opportunity -- once Khan Academy started growing, we had this viewership and

  • it seemed like there was an organization that we could start here. The question was like,

  • "How do you take what we're doing to the next level?" And that's what ñ [pause] And that's

  • what I wanna show you right here. So, these are the exercises and what I started with

  • my cousin was a much more primitive version, but this is the same, actually some of the

  • same basic code. It's been fancied up a good bit now. But the general principle is, it'll

  • give you as many--this is subtraction one--it'll give you as many problems as you need until

  • you get ten in a row. And it's a very simple--it got cut off here-- but you can have the videos

  • here, there's hints, you can see it draws a number line for you. The Khan Academy videos

  • can be pumped in, and itís a very simple idea; you do it until you get ten in a row,

  • but itís--at least in our minds--completely different than what happens right now in a

  • traditional school. In a traditional school, lecture, homework, lecture, homework, lecture,

  • homework, lecture, homework, then snapshot exam. And regardless of whether you get 80

  • percent, 90 percent, or 95 percent, the whole class moves on. Even if you fail an exam,

  • actually, the whole class will move to the next topic and what was that five, twenty,

  • or thirty percent you didn't know? It was probably something that you actually probably

  • need for the next topic, or definitely something you'll need in a few years. And there's no

  • -- people just ignore it. They place a label on your head; that some kind of value judgment

  • on whether you're smart or not and then everyone just proceeds down with those gaps. And so,

  • what we're saying is, "No, we're gonna have them do the opposite." Instead on penalizing

  • you for failure and not expecting mastery, we wanna do the opposite. We wanna allow you

  • to experiment. If you're learning ñ if you're learning to ride a bicycle, you would just

  • sit on that bicycle as long as it takes to actually learn how to ride the bicycle. And

  • so, that's what we wanna do here. We wanna allow you to experiment, we wanna allow you

  • to fail, but you're not going to move on to more advanced topics until you actually, until

  • you actually master the topic. So this is -- that is the subtraction one module. This,

  • right here, is trigonometry. [pause] This, right here, is shifting and reflecting functions.

  • And then this is how all of the exercises are structured. So literally, this node right

  • up there is single-digit addition. It's literally five plus seven, or one plus one. And once

  • you get ten in a row there, it'll move you up to one digit and a double digit addition,

  • and then single digit subtraction and then we call it very basic multiplication. Once

  • you get ten in a row there, it keeps moving you down what we call this "knowledge map"

  • and if you keep going down the knowledge map, you start getting into some more advanced

  • arithmetic; some pre-algebra here. Go further down and it starts getting into algebra, a

  • little bit of trigonometry, geometry, and precalculus. And so, the general idea is that

  • we want this graph to eventually cover everything. Actually, the funding thatall have given

  • us, roughly half the funding is to translate the videos into ten languages, but the other

  • half of the funding is to build out this graph structure to cover on the order of about two

  • hundred or three hundred modules. So, literally is all of K through calculus mathematics.

  • But the goal, and it's already pretty good coverage for K through nine, or K through

  • ten mathematics, but the goal is right now, it's about 107 modules. The K through calculus

  • is probably gonna be on the order of about 300 modules; totally very comprehensive. But

  • there's no reason why you can't expand from this into logic, into computer programming,

  • into genetics, into probability, into finance, into accounting, into grammar and logic. You

  • can just keep building off of this knowledge map, so it really covers everything that can

  • be quizzed in this type of a form factor. [pause] And so, this is just some more of

  • it right over here. And so the paradigm that we're doing -- when I started this, I assumed

  • it would be a kind of a nice to have -- a supplement for people. Even when we started,

  • when we formally became an organization, we didn't assume that it would be adopted in

  • schools. But then, one thing that happened was that teachers started adopting it on their

  • own; just the videos. We started getting letters from teachers saying, "Hey, you've already

  • given the lecture, so we're using those to flip the classroom. So instead of me giving

  • the lecture ñ me the teacher -- , I'm assigning your lectures as homework. And then what used

  • to be homework, I'm having the students do in the class." And it's a very simple concept,

  • but it really changes what a class is all about then. Now, all of a sudden, instead

  • of you literally have 30 people completely silent and completely passive, most of them

  • zoned out, a teacher having to give this one size fits all lecture, even a great teacher,

  • they're losing probably two-thirds of the class, now that happens at home. You don't

  • have to be embarrassed to rewind and look at something that you might have missed, or

  • fast-forward if you're bored, or pause something ten times; you don't have to interrupt the

  • whole class. And now, when you actually go to class, you actually have all of your peers,

  • you actually have the teacher to actually help you out. And it's interesting. One thing,

  • and I had mentioned this is in the Ted Talk, "that'll work for motivated students, but

  • what about the students who aren't going to do that?" And I was like, "Well, if you're

  • not gonna do anything at home, period, it's still better that you're doing the exercises

  • in the classroom, because that's, frankly, where you're gonna get most of the learning

  • in and if you didn't do it, watch the video in the classroom, too. And so the paradigm

  • is, where you really learn stuff and where you're really getting your head around something,

  • you want other people to be around you. When you're actually trying to solve the problem.

  • But when you're trying to listen to a lecture, you don't want people around you. You don't

  • want your peer to say, "Oh my God, look how stupid Sal is. I didn't have to pause that.

  • He's reviewing stuff from 30 -- " You don't want that around. So you want the lecture

  • to be intimate, but you want the actual classroom experience to be social. So what we're doing

  • in classrooms now is taking that to the next level. Los Altos, right here, they came to

  • us, they came to us actually about four months ago. Shantanu and myself, we had a meeting

  • with their school board and said, "If you just had carte blanche in a classroom, how

  • would you run the classroom?" And we said, "Well, we would let every student work at

  • their own pace on those exercises on that knowledge map we just showed you, and the

  • teacher would walk in every day and just get a dashboard that looks something like this."

  • And this is actually the live dashboard now from Los Altos, just so you know how the story

  • ends. "And the teacher would let -- everyone would work at their own pace and only intervene

  • on the kids who were stuck." And they said, "Oh, that's a very radical approach." But

  • then, the next day they said, "Oh, we'll do it." So, Los Altos, in November, they started

  • with two fifth grade classrooms and two seventh grade classrooms, and this became ñ I would

  • say this became 50 to 60 percent of their math curriculum, with the other forty percent

  • being project-based learning. So they completely gutted the traditional part of the curriculum;

  • no more lectures, no more traditional homework, no more of the lecture-homework-lecture-homework

  • cycle. Now, the students walk into class, the teacher looks at a dashboard like this.

  • Each row, here, is a student. I've blanked them out for privacy. Each column, here, is

  • one of those concepts you saw on that knowledge map, and green means the students already

  • got ten in a row, blue means that they're working on it, but no need to worry, and red

  • means that the student's stuck. So there could be a kid working on third grade math in a

  • fifth grade classroom, and there is. That's cool, as long as he or she isn't stuck. There

  • could be a kid working on trigonometry in the fifth grade classroom, and that actually

  • is happening. And it's actually entertaining because a reporter who asked the girl, she

  • was literally doing trigonometry and she's a fifth grader and she's like, "Do you think

  • this is fifth grade math?" And she's like, "No. I think it's sixth grade."

  • [laughter]

  • But that's cool. They should both be working on those respective concepts because that's

  • where they are. But, the teacher just works on whoever is stuck, or even better, get one

  • of the kids who are already proficient in that module, who've already gotten ten in

  • a row, let them be the first line of attack and actually tutor their peers. And we all

  • know when you actually tutor someone, there's a whole other level of learning that's going

  • to happen when you do that. And the teacher only intervened -- and so, every moment of

  • a teacher's time is actually spent on being a human; being ñ kind of interacting with

  • the classroom. I've mentioned this in other talks is that whenever people talk about technology,

  • they assume its like, "OK, it's probably good for economics. It's probably good to get more

  • bang for your buck, but it's probably gonna dehumanize the classroom." And the one thing

  • we keep saying is, "No, itís the complete opposite. When you do something like this

  • in a traditional classroom, only about five percent of a teacher's time is actually being

  • a human being, actually sitting down next to someone and tutoring them, mentoring them,

  • or working with them. Now, a hundred percent of their time is." So, when you're using technology,

  • you're actually humanizing the classroom by, if you believe those numbers and I actually

  • think the five percent was generous, by a factor of 20. And so, we don't want, even

  • when I worked with my cousin, Nadia, and even when I had the data on ---, I would ask her,

  • "Did you get this? Did you understand this?" And she's like, "Oh, yeah, I got it. I got

  • it." There's these very painful discussions that you have if you ever tried tutoring anybody

  • on what they do get and what they don't get. And so, we wanted to avoid the teacher having

  • to do those really painful, awkward questions. And so, we're trying to arm the teachers with

  • as much data as possible. So this is like ñ this is one of the views. A student can

  • view this about him or herself, or a teacher or parent can see this about any of their

  • students. And this is just one of the reports; we have a bunch of them. But this is literally

  • just the activity for the student over the last 30 days. You could see it over the last

  • day, you could see it by hour, you can see it over the last year. But each of these bars,

  • these are on a certain day. The light blue is the time spent on exercises. The navy blue

  • is the time spent on videos. These are the highest achievements achieved that day. And

  • if the student or the teacher, they scroll over any of this, they actually see exactly

  • the student spent 38 minutes on exercises; they got that many energy points. These are

  • their achievements. The videos would be there if they watched videos that day, and we're

  • actually even tracking when they pause the videos, when do they repeat the videos. We're

  • gonna start using that. One, for the teacher to know what happened, but also even for us

  • to know how can we, how can we improve our videos. [pause] One report that teachers ask

  • us is -- they said, "Look, it looks like some of the kids are really focused and they're

  • moving ahead, while some kids are jumping around a lot. Can we have a report on focus?"

  • And we said, "Sure." So, this is, this is the focus report. The outer circle is literally

  • a pie chart of what exercises students spent time on. This inner circle is where they spent

  • on videos. And, once again, if you scroll over any of it, you get more detail on exactly

  • what the student was up to. [pause] This right here just shows how granular the data is.

  • This is a student who is doing the probability one module. So, a teacher can go and say,

  • "OK, this is the first problem; they got it right. That's why it's blue. They probably

  • guessed because they spent like, four seconds on it. And they watched the video. Then they

  • got the next one wrong, a couple right, maybe guessed. Wrong, wrong. It looks like whenever

  • they actually made an effort on the problem, they got it wrong and then they guessed a

  • few right.

  • [laughter]

  • Then they used a hint. And if you click, if a teacher actually, if a student, later, when

  • they see this on their report and they click on any of these, they see the exact problem

  • that they didn't get right. And then, you can eventually see-- and this was so funny--it

  • got clipped off here, but you can see the student eventually getting ten in a row. And

  • it's fun; you can almost see them thinking. There's some deep thought going on the 99th

  • problem, where the student said, "No, I'm gonna get my streak now." And so, he or she

  • literally got this problem right, and then you can actually see that they get faster

  • and faster and then they get ten in row. So, you can actually see the learning process.

  • [pause] And most people ñ when you say "self-paced learning" sounds like a good idea, but the

  • one thing that we're seeing over and over again. And this goes back to ñ I -- there's

  • literally in one of the fifth grade classrooms, in Los Altos, there's a few kids doing third

  • grade math and there's a few kids doing even calculus. And there's a huge temptation when

  • you see that. "Oh. Gifted kids, remedial kids. But it's cool. They can be in the same classroom,

  • but those kids are gifted, those kids are remedial. Those kids are not gonna be at Google,

  • these kids are. I mean that's the -- we all do that. When you see that, you just think

  • that. We're so used to labeling people. But one thing we're seeing over and over again,

  • we've seen it at Los Altos, we're seeing it in other summer camps we've run, is that some

  • subset of those kids--five days into it--there's this spread. This is just days into the pilot.

  • This is the modules completed. Some days into it, there's a group that clusters here and

  • you can see that group here and there's a group that clusters here. These are the gifted

  • students in a traditional system; these would be the slow students. But you always see these

  • students, once they spend extra time on some module, and they get some core weakness out

  • of the way, and you don't know who they are ñ you really don't ñ you have no idea; they

  • just rocket forward. Everything else just starts to click and so, in a matter of six

  • weeks, we've seen this flipping multiple times of the students that you used to think were

  • slow or remedial; they just had some basic core weakness. And once you actually give

  • them a change to get it out of the way, they just rocket ahead. I mean, this kid right

  • here, literally, I think he's our number one or number two kid in the class, and starting

  • off, he was one of the worst. So you see this over and over and over again. [pause] So that's

  • the general idea of what we're up to. We can address a lot more of it in the Q&A, but our

  • goal is literally to be a free classroom for the world; give a world-class education to

  • anyone, anywhere. And I want to be careful. We don't think we're doing that yet. We think

  • we're solving parts of the problem. We have the videos, we're doing the exercises, we're

  • doing the data, we're doing the analytics, we can kind of become a kind of operating

  • system for a classroom, but we think there's a lot more and that's why itís fun to talk

  • toall because to some degree, we can even brainstorm on what that would mean. But, I

  • think it's completely possible that you can have a reality where, in five or ten years,

  • ideally you will have a classroom where you will have a human being actually helping you

  • out. But there's a reality where even if you don't have that, you can get a pretty darn

  • good education. So I'll open it up to questions. Anyone who wants to walk up to the microphone,

  • and ifall, I guess there's that website where people have ranked questions. [pause]

  • I could ñ I'll take this one.

  • >>audience #1: Hi. Thank you for coming. I wanted to ask a question about if the model

  • for the future is gonna be one like Wikipedia, where you're gonna open up the creation of

  • the content, the videos, and the exercises? And if so, how would you maintain the quality

  • in those types of things?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. That's a great question. The question is, will we open it up to kind

  • of be a Wikipedia of education as opposed to -- and so, we're open to opening it up

  • somewhat, but I think for video-based lectures, if we just look at the video side, I think

  • the reason why I think that kind of crowd sourcing doesn't work is because it's one,

  • your quality is gonna be all over the place. And even if the quality is good, it would

  • actually be very jarring. If I came and give you -- imagine if you're in a math class and

  • I came and gave the first lecture, and then the next day you have another good lecturer,

  • but you're like, "Who is this guy?" And then the next day you have another lecturer. So

  • there's actually this huge level of trust that you have to build with the lecturer for

  • you to be able to invest in more and more watching. So, that's why we resist really

  • opening it up. We do suspect there's a whole set of things that other people know that

  • I could never know, or that would teach better than me. Or maybe they'd teach the same thing

  • that I'm teaching, but in a different way that responds to other people. And so we are

  • open to people. We're telling people, "Hey, make 30 videos, 40 videos, 50 videos on a

  • certain topic." One, you should do it on your own, cause you don't need us to broadcast

  • them, but if it really does feel the same, it's consistent with our brand, we'd be open

  • to it.

  • >>audience #1: Thank you.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. I'll take--

  • >>presenter: [ ]

  • >>Salman Khan: Top down. OK. I'll read this first one. "With such busy schedules and varying

  • priorities, how are parents/students supposed to identify online learning centers like Khan

  • Academy that are legitimate academic institutes and not just money-making schemes created

  • to take advantage of the online trend?" One, we're not-for-profit, so we're definitely

  • not a money-making scheme, unless I got particularly creative with the--

  • [laughter]

  • But we're not a money-making scheme. And actually, that was, that was one of the main reasons

  • for being a not-for-profit. I mean, there's a lot of people who talk about double bottom

  • line organizations which is an oxymoron. Bottom line is meant to be literally the bottom line.

  • Like that's the thing that you care about. And you can't say I care about two things

  • that are usually in opposition with each other. So, if I was genuine, and I hope I am, about

  • -- no, the number one goal is not to become rich, not to do whatever. The number one goal

  • is to provide an education for people; make it a not-for-profit. And there's other realities

  • that it actually has a better chance of becoming a lasting institution then. If it's for-profit,

  • it'll be acquired by McGraw Hill at some point and I'd buy a nice house, but that would be

  • the end of it. But here, there actually is a potential to last potentially beyond me.

  • I'll take a question.

  • >>audience #2: Yes. So one of the problems I have is -- we run a training for our Google

  • partners -- it's technical training. We have a classroom-based and it's like your model.

  • We focus on getting the learning exercises; walking around, helping them, get through

  • them covering the theory. And we have another group of you who are ñ that can't come here

  • for various reasons.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. Yeah.

  • >>audience #2: I have problems getting them to actually do the homework because that's

  • where the learning, watch the tutorials, but the homework pieces seems kind of ñ it drops

  • off. People are not that interested. What kinds of things can you recommend?

  • >>Salman Khan: You know ñ I think ñ so -- to get people to do the homework, I mean -- the

  • best way is just to track it. I mean, that gives you information on whether they are

  • or aren't doing the homework.

  • >>audience #2: They're not submitting it, so I know--

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, yeah. So, they're not submitting it, so they're not doing it.

  • >>audience #2: And we have some carrots. We have certifications and that's a big carrot

  • that we're seeing people completing the content. But are there other, because people ñ there

  • are competing events they have in their life.

  • >>Salman Khan: I think -- it's interesting we had the gut sense that gamefying a lot

  • of it, giving badges and points, and actually I can even show you we have some of that over

  • here. We have some of these ñ we have some of these badges right over here. So, gamefying,

  • we thought it would be kind of a nice to have, like it would make it kind of cool, but itís

  • amazing what's itís done. Oh -- it's not on the screen now.

  • >>audience #2: Have you seen a lot more people completing the content with the badges?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. It's great just changing the amount of points you give for certain

  • achievements or the wording has actually changed like thousands of people's behaviors overnight.

  • Oh, yeah. There you go. Those are the badges. So we just have a ton of these badges that

  • we've set up and I was saying earlier at lunch, in Los Altos, these are fifth graders. So,

  • lemme show you there's a black hole badge that right now, the black hole badge is -- we

  • have it defined. It's the most legendary badge on the Khan Academy. It's actually impossible

  • to get right now.

  • [laughter]

  • Because we said no. That has to be -- once we have three hundred modules, then you can

  • only, if you get like, two hundred, we don't even have that, so itís actually impossible

  • to get now. But the fifth graders became so obsessed with getting--fifth gradersó with

  • getting a black hole badge that some subset of them went into our code, so itís an OpenSource

  • project,

  • [laughter]

  • went into our code and figured out they had to get 150, they told us, "Oh, we figured

  • out we have to get 150," and I'm like, "How do you?" "The code."

  • [laughter]

  • So, itís amazing what, I mean, yíall should be giving offers to those kids. I don't know

  • what they're --

  • [laughter]

  • But itís amazing what this type of thing does to motivate, especially kids. I don't

  • know if it'll do it for employees.

  • [laughter]

  • >>audience #2: Thank you.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. Those, exactly. And I'll take one from the -- I'll just read it. Where's

  • the? [pause] Oh, there's not a, oh, these are always the same. OK. "So you tend to focus

  • on math, science, and economic concepts. What do you think it would take to make this format

  • work for grammar, writing, or composition?" So grammar, I think, is one that's very doable.

  • I've tried to contact people who have good--I won't name the companies--but there's a company

  • out there that I think has a really good, you know -- when I studied for the GMAT, I

  • used their book, and I was like, "I finally learned grammar."

  • [laughter]

  • And it might not be obvious, hearing me speak now, but I just wanna find good materials.

  • But, I think, grammar actually is perfect for both the videos and for the exercises,

  • because it is actually logical and very mathematical to a large degree. And you can diagram things

  • out. I think, one way or the other, writing or composition, those will be interesting.

  • I think writing and composition are much more activity-based. You can't just have someone

  • give you a lecture on what it means. Although, it would be probably ñ it would be interesting

  • to have someone give a lecture. Maybe itís me, maybe it's someone else. On what -- like,

  • this is well-written, this is badly written, and why it is. But the more useful thing is

  • to actually to write things and maybe get some type of peer review. So, it probably

  • won't fit directly into that knowledge map structure, but I think there probably, there

  • is something we could do to leverage the two million students using Khan Academy right

  • now, where you write an essay -- maybe we have essay competitions, or people write essays

  • and then they peer-review it and the best ones surface. I think there's something that

  • we could do, but we don't -- we haven't figured that out yet. I'll take one right here.

  • >>audience #3: So I'm a huge fan. I actually watched most of your linear algebra lectures

  • over the winter break, and I've been trying to tell everyone I know--

  • >>Salman Khan: You deserve a badge.

  • [laughter]

  • >>audience #3: I thought about it; different things to get badges and showing them to everyone.

  • So I've been telling everyone I know about Khan Academy, but I was brainstorming with

  • other engineers here about how we can do -- what can we do to help? As you mentioned, other

  • people giving lectures isn't necessarily helpful because they might not be good lectures. So,

  • what can other individuals, or Google, do to accelerate this process other than just

  • giving money?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. Oh you could give more money.

  • [laughter}

  • >>audience #3: Well, I mean--

  • >>Salman Khan: No, no, actually, genuinely, geniuinely and you're right. I mean, we view

  • the ñ actually the videos are kind of what get people into our fold, but then the real

  • value is the exercises and the other. And I think, eventually, the communities are gonna

  • be super valuable. So, I don't know the policies of volunteering code for other projects and

  • things, but those modules, they're very stand-alone. We're speccing them out and if you say, "Hey!

  • I could write a cool or I could write a whole set of modules on grammar." We'd love that.

  • Work with us; we're literally based on Castro Street, so we're not too far away. But if

  • there's more sophisticated things, people at Google, even outside of the funding, have

  • helped us move forward with some of the translations and things like that. So, there's interesting

  • things out there, AdGoogle, either products that could directly benefit some of what I've

  • talked about, or you're like, "Hey, I think it'd be fun to crank out a couple of those

  • modules or have some neat ideas for them", we'd love to have your help and we are hiring,

  • if any ofall are looking for a sabbatical.

  • [laughter]

  • I don't know what the policy is on things like that. I'll --

  • >>audience #3: I had one more quick question, 'cause--

  • >>Salman Khan: Oh yeah, yeah, sure.

  • >>audience #3: How much planning do you do for your videos?

  • >>Salman Khan: How much what?

  • >>audience #3: How much pre-planning do you do?

  • >>Salman Khan: How much pre-planning do I do before the videos? So, if I'm doing like

  • an algebra worked example, I literally will like, put it up there and just do the problem.

  • Like the first -- when you see me do it, it's usually the first time I'm looking at the

  • problem, unless something disastrous happens. If I'm doing, like I did some videos recently

  • on China. Actually, there's one of the ones on the montage on how China pegs its currency

  • to the US dollar; that one is something I'm kind of familiar with from my hedge fund life,

  • so on my walk to work, I'll think about it and then when I sit down I'll just do it.

  • So, if I'm doing something that I'm really not that familiar with, where I really have

  • to get myself re-immersed, like organic chemistry, that I'll spend like two weeks literally just

  • immersing myself in the field, and getting the ñ kind of living and breathing organic

  • chemistry. And then I'll make the video. I tell people that I try to prepare my brain,

  • but I don't try to script the lectures, because then they come off unnatural, or scripted.

  • [laughs] I'll alternate. How can we be sure that great programs like this don't widen

  • the gap between the haves and have nots? Those who need the most help are often unlikely

  • to have a home computer or a high speed connection. So, that's actually a really good point, and

  • I suspect, it's not something that I'd like to admit, but I suspect that right now we

  • maybe are; that right now it is people, I think Khan Academy's penetration is much higher

  • in Google households than it is in random households across the country. And I think

  • itís definitely much higher than households where there isn't a parent with a college

  • education. So I think right now we are, probably in the short term, unfortunately doing that.

  • I think over the long term, though, what it does is it--right now when everyone says,

  • "Oh, we should get one laptop per child or we should put fiber to this school or that

  • school." There's not a tangible reason to do it. Like people -- there's a feel-good

  • reason that maybe it'll help. It'll probably help kids have the access, but I think once

  • something like a Khan Academy exists and people see that ñ we better get our act together

  • -- this will actually be the catalyst for getting fiber into the classroom, the catalyst

  • for getting laptops in front of kids. Then it'll actually close the gap because the delivery

  • cost is actually zero. One thing that we're saying is -- Los Altos is not a needy neighborhood,

  • but they were quick to adopt it because they're flexible and we were really impressed with

  • how they run. There's some private schools that want to adopt it really fast and there's

  • no bureaucracy or nothing, so they're adopting it. But what we suspect is going to happen

  • is they're setting the best practice and then, hopefully, around the rest of the country

  • or around the world, all sorts of upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class, will

  • say, "Wait, if they're doing that at Los Altos, or they're doing it at that fancy private

  • school, how come our kids are not doing it? And on top of everything, it's free. So, there's

  • no reason not to do it." So I think in the near term, there might be a little bit of

  • that, but hopefully over the long term, it actually serves as a catalyst to close, to

  • actually motivate the technology gap.

  • >>audience #4: Hi. My name is Anne, and I should admit that both of my parents are math

  • teachers and I was a math teacher before I came to Google. So, it's really exciting to

  • see, like, I've certainly seen a lot of times with my family being skeptical of various

  • ways of technology trying to replace, but it's really exciting because it's very much

  • correlated with the types of challenges. And my mom is especially into self-paced learning,

  • which is really time intensive and people-intensive so it's a really amazing way to let that happen

  • and let the teachers focus on the most important place where they can add the most value. I

  • was wondering how you've seen teachers incorporate this in terms of when they want to do deeper

  • problem solving, or group work, and how does that, how does that classroom experience integrate

  • and --

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, so the question is about how does this integrate with what teachers

  • are trying to do with a deeper experience and we haven't, I get a lot of anecdotal stuff

  • on emails and stuff and I said, even before we started doing this pilot with Los Altos,

  • there were teachers who are flipping the classroom, lectures at home, or home and in the classroom,

  • and then the teacher can work with them. And what we're seeing in Los Altos is, and even

  • those teachers, is because you're freeing up all of this time where this lecture doesn't

  • have to happen in the classroom, it depends on the teacher, but it frees up a ton of time

  • so they can do the project-based learning. There's so much debate: project-based learning

  • versus the traditional doing a lot of exercises and seeing a lot of problems is learning.

  • And what's cool about this is you can do both. They're both valuable. It's actually not an

  • either/or proposition. And even a lot of people said, "Do you teach new math or old math?"

  • I do both. You know, why not? There's no reason ñ there's no limitation for our classroom,

  • so you can actually do every possible way of looking at something.

  • >>audience #4: Awesome. Thanks again. It's really amazing.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. Oh, thanks, thanks. I'll take one here. Students are now truly--I'm

  • doing it like the videos, I don't know how bad these questions are gonna be ñ they might

  • put me on the spot--

  • [laughter]

  • "Students are now truly empowered to work through course material at their own pace.

  • How do you create meaningful cohort groupings in this context? Age--as opposed to skill--seems

  • to be inefficient from the perspective of maximizing learning." So, I completely agree

  • with that. So this, even in the Los Altos classroom, you have--it's a fifth grade classroom;

  • they're all ten or eleven years old--and there you have that mix. Our idea would actually

  • be a classroom of all age groups. Literally, in the same room, you have fifth graders,

  • or you have five year-olds and you have 18 year-olds, and there's no kind of preconceived

  • notion that if you're 13 and you're learning this, you're stupid. It's just the pace that

  • everyone learns at. And what you get there, I actually think everyone in the mix will

  • actually act a lot more mature when they're around older and younger students. And then

  • you get the true benefit of the learning across generations. So, I completely ñ I completely

  • agree with that; that it's a good comment, I guess.

  • [audience member claps]

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take--

  • >>audience #5: [ ]

  • >>Salman Khan: Oh, very good. Thank you. Go ahead.

  • >>audience #6: Great. After all these very wonderful questions, I have a really pragmatic

  • one.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, yeah.

  • >>audience #6: Which is, your lectures, for example, on the French Revolution and the

  • California High School Exit Exam, use imagery and problems from other sources. How do you

  • dance around copyright?

  • >>Salman Khan: How do I dance around copyright? So I have a very loose interpretation of "fair

  • use".

  • [laughter]

  • No, no, no. Well, that's actually true. But the -- so, all of this, like the French Revolution

  • stuff, I do look on Wikipedia, I look for stuff that's in the public domain. Most of

  • those paintings and stuff are in the public domain. The copyrights expired. Stuff like

  • the California or the Massachusettsís Test for Teacher Licensing, I mean, these tests

  • are written by government bodies and I assume they want teachers to pass. And so, I've taken--on

  • things like that, if it's a government sponsored-- I also have stuff for like the IIT Joint Entrance

  • Exam, I have some of their problems. These are issued by the Indian government. I didn't

  • ask their permission. But I assume, I mean, they can sue me. It would be an interesting

  • PR issue for them.

  • [laughter]

  • But I ñ I ñ I ñ one -- I actually do think it falls under fair use, but even -- I would

  • be very surprised if they were upset. I wouldn't take something from McGraw Hill and do it,

  • is a simple answer, or I'd ask their permission first.

  • >>audience #6: Thanks.

  • >>Salman Khan: And I am careful about the Wikipedia creative commons and all that other

  • stuff, too. Yeah. Simple. So, next one." What tools and techniques are you using to interest

  • students who are traditionally not self-motivated or those requiring a different learning style

  • than a standard video provides?" So, traditionally not self-motivated. Actually, the gaming is

  • a huge thing for the traditionally not self-motivated. And actually, I think once -- a lot of people

  • are just not motivated because they have these gaps in their knowledge that the traditional

  • model can't address and people are just talking past each other. And if you allow them to

  • remediate, without feeling embarrassed, and they can do it in a game framework and they

  • get points and badges, that, actually, I think solves a lot, a lot of the actual motivation

  • problem. The other ñ the other -- the learning styles, what are you doing requiring different

  • learning style that a standard video provides? So there's a couple of things. I mean, there's

  • the video, but I think the exercises are at least as important and that's what we do more

  • for the peers to be able to interact with each other. That's as least as important.

  • But the other thing is--this isn't Khan Academy related--but they've actually done a lot of

  • studies, like double-blind control studies and the learning styles is kind of a myth;

  • that there's actually a good instruction and bad instruction. Everyone likes to think that

  • "I'm an auditory learner, I'm a visual learner," but the reality is ñ no -- there's some things

  • you learn, you're learning art history or geometry, you're a visual. If you're learning

  • a foreign language, you're auditory, or maybe a little bit of visual. If you're learning

  • certain things, you like to see it written. And when they actually did double-blind, this

  • is easy -- you can go Google it. There's a bunch of styles; I was just reading this last

  • week, that there's actually no evidence that to teach people who are self-identified, or

  • somehow identified auditory learners in an auditory way, actually is better than not.

  • But with that said is ñ with that said, I think there are multiple ways to teach the

  • same thing and so, I'll make videos. I think in the future, we'll probably have other hopefully

  • good lecturers who will take a slightly different take on things. Even some topics, I take five

  • different takes on it, so people see it from a bunch of different angles. Maybe at different

  • skill levels. Even now, there are some videos that are very primary, a little bit more mechanical,

  • but some go a lot deeper and go into the proofs and go into the actual intuition. So I think

  • itís just making sure that there's enough material out there that it responds to every

  • type of learner. I'lló[pause]

  • >>audience #7: The way, the implementation, that you've done is great, but the ideas aren't

  • really new.

  • >>Salman Khan: Nope.

  • >>audience #7: They're 30, 40, 50, 200 years old.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yep.

  • >>audience #7: So, I was wondering how much, how much you've been able to tap into the

  • small bit of this kind of learning that's been done in the past, talking about like

  • Sudbury Schools--

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah.

  • >>audience #7: or some of the very radical educational groups, un-schoolers? How much

  • has been able to flow back into the things you're doing in Khan Academy?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. So the general concepts here are not at all new and actually, I was

  • recently looking, I mean people -- this whole notion of actually mastering something before

  • you move to another concept, it's called mastery-based learning and people have been talking about

  • it for 80 years and have actually done studies on it, like 30 years ago. The two definitive,

  • in all of the education research, the two definitive studies, or at least the only two

  • that I've found that are just super definitive, are one, mastery-based learning. Every trial

  • they did, and they did this 30 years ago with like worksheets and people walking around,

  • but it was essentially the same model had unambiguous success. I mean, these kids were

  • learning at several fold the pace of traditional students, with much better retention and much

  • better mastery of things. And then the other thing, there's actually a good bit of research,

  • 30 years old, definitive, never refuted, is that when people watch a lecture, they zone

  • out after 15 minutes. And they zone out for about five minutes and then when they zone

  • back in, they're only able to zone in for about nine minutes. And then they zone out

  • for another five minutes and then when they zone back in, they can only zone in for about

  • six minutes. And this process goes until, by the end of a 90 minute lecture, they can

  • only zone in for like three or four minutes. And I think we've all experienced that. Hopefully,

  • none ofall are right now.

  • [laughter]

  • But these are not ñ but to the question's point, these are not new ideas. Even when

  • radio came out, people said, "This is gonna revolutionize education; get the best lecturers,

  • put them on radio." TV came out; same idea. VCRs came out; same idea. I think what makes

  • it different this time is it is so easy to get at. I mean, it is literally on demand,

  • and you have all of the data, all of the analytics. And I think there is something about the actual

  • craftsmanship. This wasn't built by a bureaucracy at the Department of Education, or a bureaucracy

  • at a publishing company. This was built by people who are literally looking at the learner

  • and saying, "Well, what does the learner want? And what's useful for them?" In terms of actually

  • leveraging some of that stuff, I think we can leverage the spirit, I think we can leverage

  • a lot of the models. And it gives us confidence that look, there's actually a huge amount

  • of research, it's just nothing exists because it wasn't practical until now. And I think

  • that's probably the level that we can leverage a lot of these other models. I'll take one

  • over here. "Your program demonstrates the role that technology can play to make learning

  • efficient and effective, yet the adoption rate for technology in the public education

  • system is lagging. What hurdles must we overcome to get these tools in the classroom?" So I

  • think the technology in the public education system is lagging for good reason. I don't

  • know -- even when I was in school, in the 80s, we had computers in the classroom and

  • we would go into the computer lab and we would learn how to insert a diskette. Or, really

  • silly stuff, like how to boot the computer. There was no actually using the technology

  • in the classroom. And I think that goes all the way now where people have iPad's but they're

  • still not really doing something constructive. So, I think a lot of the skepticism was actually

  • warranted. And hopefully, Khan Academy will be a catalyst for saying, "OK, finally we

  • have something that is actually something to do with the technology in the classroom."

  • And so, I'm hoping it's actually going to be a catalyst for solving that problem. Go.

  • >>audience #8: I mean this is a very disruptive approach, things like flipping the classroom

  • and so on. Are there any stakeholders where you've encountered strong resistance? I don't

  • know, parents, principals, teachers, or somebody?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, so have you encountered any resistance? It's strange, but no. One,

  • because from the get-go, you know the way -- it's been a very organic process. So, never,

  • five years ago, even now, we're not saying, "We are going to lobby the Department of Education,

  • or this state body, or this school district, and we're going to try to sell our product

  • to them." If we did that, we would face a lot of resistance. What we're doing is we're

  • literally putting stuff out there. We have mainly the student in mind and forward-thinking

  • schools and institutions and school districts are coming to us and so, they've been, they've

  • been pretty amazing about doing it. I think one interesting thing that'll happen, I think

  • for almost everyone in this room, if you were to be a school teacher, this would be a more

  • fun way to teach. You get to go into a room, you don't have to prepare.

  • [laughter]

  • And, and you have -- you get to be a mentor for these students. I think what could be

  • a little scary for some teachers is that you're a fifth grade teacher, but there's some kids

  • doing calculus in that room. And what we've seen with the Los Altos students, it's actually

  • pretty profound what they've been doing. They walk up to those kids, cause some of those

  • kids go red on like, the chain rule, right?

  • [laughter]

  • And so, the teacher's like, "I have to intervene."

  • [laughter]

  • She'll walk up to that student, she's like, "You know what? I haven't seen this since

  • college and I forgot how to do it. Let's learn about this together." And it takes a lot of

  • self-confidence for a teacher to admit that they aren't the know-it-all at the front of

  • the classroom, but they are just maybe a more mature, someone who's seen more of the world,

  • but they're at the same level mathematically right now but they can learn it together.

  • So I think that's the paradigm shift that will have to go on, but I think it becomes

  • much more pleasant as a teacher to be able to do that. And the kid immediately responds

  • to the teacher. The kid immediately respects the teacher more when he or she actually communicates

  • in that kind of way.

  • >>audience #7: And parents seem to be OK with it, also?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, with the Los Altos, we had no experience actually working in a school

  • system. The Los Altos principals and school board, they set up some parent meetings, and

  • the parents ñ they were all -- so that they felt comfortable with it. They gave everyone

  • the option to opt out; no one opted out. And now, they're getting a lot of push to go,

  • as you can imagine. We're gonna continue to multiple classrooms. You can imagine there

  • are fifth graders where some of the kids aren't doing the chain rule and their parents are

  • getting a little paranoid.

  • [laughter]

  • That little gap is occurring. I'll ask a--." The modern economy demands an increasingly

  • educated workforce, yet higher education continues to become more and more unaffordable. How

  • is this situation rectified? Can 'college' be disrupted?" So, the simple answer is yes.

  • [laughter]

  • And actually, I think this is something, I mean, I don't know if I should go on the record,

  • on video, but I said this at lunch, so no harm saying it now. Actually, I think Google

  • could play a big role in that. Imagine--and the details have yet to be worked out--but

  • imagine where all of the core academic stuff Khan Academy takes care of. If you wanna learn

  • electric circuits, if you wanna learn big-O notation, if you wanna learn capital asset

  • pricing models, Khan Academy can do those academic things. So, imagine if there was

  • a university in Mountain Viewówe'll put it in downtown Castro Street; it has a nice vibe

  • and all of that-- and you literally, I mean, we could even leverage Khan Academy. We know

  • all of the best students are gonna be using Khan Academy already. I think a lot of them

  • are and so, we don't have a, if you started an institution, you don't have this kind of

  • recognition problem. But what you do is the students, you say, "Look, instead of going

  • to MIT or Stanford or Harvard, why don't you come to this new university--whatever you

  • call it; Silicon Valley, whatever; some name-- and the focus is you spend one year at Google,

  • or six months at Google, six months at Apple, six months working on a project for Kleiner

  • Perkins, six month writing an iPhone app, six months working at Facebook. And you do

  • a series of projects; those projects are essentially your transcript. We have seminars. We'll even

  • set up a little bit of a dorm for you so you have the nice college experience and you can

  • walk into each otherís classrooms, each other's bedrooms in the middle of the night and chat

  • about things and all the rest. And instead of you paying any tuition, we're gonna pay

  • you. Each of those companies, instead of, I mean, all of a sudden, when I graduated

  • from college, all of a sudden all of these--Google didn't exist then--but Google-like companies

  • were like, "Oh, here's a smart guy and from a good school. I wanna hire him." And literally

  • four years ago, I had probably 90 percent of the same skills and I couldn't get a job

  • at a local supermarket. I'm serious. Like, I literally applied to a supermarket and I

  • couldn't get a job. And it was just the process of going to one of these schools that was

  • just like a big signal. So, on one side, actually you would get these really smart 17 or 18-year

  • olds immediately doing useful things and we know from recent companies that started, that

  • there's some very innovative things that 18 or 19 year olds can do, and the company's

  • benefit. But even more important, these people are actually getting tangible skills, but

  • they're still getting the academic component because a lot of that can be done self-paced,

  • it can be done in a seminar format, and frankly, the faculty then, it becomes all of you guys.

  • And the management at Google and Apple and the VCs in the areas and the entrepreneurs

  • in the areas, and I think if you have an institution like that, and all of a sudden, people not

  • only do they not have to pay for school, they can actually get paid to go to school and

  • they finish and they're probably gonna get a better salary and better job placement than

  • pretty much any other university in the world. I think just that example would pretty much

  • disrupt education; disrupt higher education. So, we'll have to work out the details.

  • [laughter]

  • >>audience #8: Hi. So, the mastiff actually looks really great and I'm just really excited

  • to see this kind of thing. My question was how it extends to sciences, where sometimes

  • there really isn't a correct answer--

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah.

  • >>audience #8: or, at least if you just write a bunch of word problems, physics word problems

  • aren't really physics. There's something more deep going on there and I was wondering how

  • you would, if you had any thoughts on how that extends.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yes. How do we extend that stuff? Maybe itís not as concrete, multiple-choice,

  • or free answer, right answer all the time. Well, what I think there is a lot that is

  • that, is that kind of builds a scaffold, so you would do the traditional kinematics and

  • Newtonian mechanics and the traditional problem sets, you can do in this type of a form factor.

  • And then it can be all self-paced. I think to get to the next level of real, deep understanding,

  • there's a couple things that we could do. We could more simulation-based learning, where

  • as you go through that knowledge map, at some points these simulations unlock, or maybe

  • they always unlock and you have to figure out some things just by observing the simulations.

  • I think a really interesting thing -- one thing that people -- we talk about providing

  • education, but one thing we don't do is we don't credential people right now; we don't,

  • in an authenticable kind of way. So, maybe oral exams is the right answer. Like, you

  • have badges and right now, you're a novice physicist, or whatever, first level physics

  • person, on the Khan Academy. If you want to get to the middle level or the ninja level

  • or whatever we end up calling it, you have to get five other ninja level people to have

  • a Skype oral exam with you. And only then, if four of the five, or five out of five,

  • say "He's ready to be a physics ninja," that's too cheesy of a name, but then he will move

  • up. There's actually a possibility here to actually do the best of, I mean, the gold

  • standard in evaluation is the oral exam. But it has to be well done. But I think there

  • is something here where we could go to that level.

  • >>audience #8: Thank you.

  • >>Salman Khan: I'll take, "Currently, most of the content is focused on learner-centric

  • approach. Are there plans to incorporate content for instructors/facilitators- more softer

  • skills? Example: Presentation skills, facilitation skills, adult learning theories, etc." We

  • will. I mean, we will do, I don't know if it'll just be for instructors/facilitators,

  • but, I don't know -- this might ruin the Khan Academy, but I've been tempted to give dating

  • advice on the --

  • [laughter]

  • My son's two years old right now and the theory is, when he's 17, he's more likely to listen

  • to 34 year old Sal than 50 year old Sal. And so, if I just record them now, it'll be like

  • a nice time shift of--

  • [laughter]

  • I'm kind of serious about -- but--

  • [laughter]

  • we're open to it. I mean, we don't wanna do something that's really cheesy, like "Make

  • sure to eat five different groups of fruits and vegetables." I mean, some people have

  • lobbied for videos like that. We want people where any Khan Academy video you watch, there's

  • kind of line an "aha" moment, like "Yes. I understand something about the world that

  • I'm not getting from other sources." We would want to do it so it's actually meaningful,

  • but we're not opposed to doing softer skills type of things. We'll see how it works. We

  • don't know.

  • >>audience #9: So, it's clear to me how this stuff can work really well at the elementary

  • level, but I'm more worried about what it might do to the curriculum at the higher levels.

  • I have helped my kids learn this stuff all the way up and by the time you get to Euclidian

  • geometry, a good problem might take half an hour to an hour to solve. The answer might

  • be half a page proof and there might be ten different proofs that are equally valid. I've

  • actually had some specific problems that I've worked through with my son. So how do you

  • cope with the fact that you're limited to this form factor that you described to us?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah. I think some of that can be tackled--this form factor--not all

  • of it. I mean, if we designed the modules right you could actually probably do fairly

  • deep, I mean -- it would be hard to be able to have someone actually write the proof and

  • then do a proof check. I mean, even people have attempted--

  • >>audience #10: [ ]

  • >>Salman Khan: OK, so it's done. Computers can do it.

  • >>audience #9: Not as a practical matter.

  • >>Salman Khan: I mean seriously -- I think we're gonna try to do, we're gonna try to

  • tackle as much as you can do with that form factor, but what we're hoping is if you get

  • a lot of the blocking/tackling done this way, it frees up a lot of time so that when there

  • actually is human interaction, and a human interaction might be with a parent, it might

  • be with a teacher. We have these Meetups happening and these Meetups might turn into spontaneous

  • tutoring sessions, where people can work through hard, more difficult problems, or group problems.

  • I think some of that stuff could, I mean, we're even entertaining, I mean, now we have

  • enough students where we're even entertaining Khan Academy math competitions. It's the next

  • level where it's like human written, unique problems and that maybe teams in different

  • areas can try to solve it. Maybe they can even collaborate. We haven't thought about

  • it deeply yet, but I think it's doable. It won't just be a hundred percent automated,

  • though.

  • >>audience #9: Right. And in a much shorter question that perhaps has the same answer,

  • I coached Math Olympiad for a number of years and one of the things I really enjoyed was

  • when the students came up with a solution that was not the one that I was gonna suggest.

  • You kind of cut the feedback loop here. Is that a problem?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, I think on Math Olympiad type questions, I think that's going to be

  • a completely different-- it won't be this. It will be, so we are playing with the notion

  • of having a question repository, human-written questions. Although, right now, we're thinking

  • it would still be more the right answer type of things, not proof-based. But you could

  • imagine, actually, that would get closer to the peer-to-peer writing type of thing. So,

  • there's a question, people submit solutions and then if you have a critical mass of people

  • on the system, they can evaluate it--kind of a peer review-- and they can say, "Whose

  • proof was the coolest?" or something like that. I don't know. So, it won't be automated

  • in the instruction but because of the Web and the number of people you have, kind of

  • a critical mass, you could probably get a good peer-to-peer thing going, I think.

  • >>audience #9: All right. So, one last try at the first question.

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  • >>audience #9: Because you didn't really answer what scares me most. I'm worried that this

  • will be so successful that it's gonna dumb down the curricula. It's going to be easy

  • enough, maybe it's gonna be so much easier for the school to do stuff in this way, that

  • things that aren't amenable to automation will simply vanish from the curriculum. Is

  • that a legitimate worry?

  • >>Salman Khan: I don't think so. I hope the first part about your worry is true; that

  • it's wildly successful.

  • [laughter]

  • But I think the answer is that right now what you have in schools, you have great teachers

  • and you have not so great teachers and you have things in-between. What happens is, the

  • kids who have the not so great teachers, they're still gonna be able to do well on the SAT.

  • They're still gonna be able to do well on the AP Calculus. They're not gonna be math

  • Olympiads, but they're gonna get the blocking and tackling, so that they still have the

  • same opportunities and all that. And the students who have the good teachers, the great teachers,

  • those teachers are gonna see this as "Yeah, this is taking all the blocking and tackling."

  • Like, if you're tutoring kids, you can say, "Look, you need to learn how to add fractions.

  • I know you can do that on your own, especially if you're gonna get to the Math Olympiad.

  • You can do that part on your own. Khan Academy has your back, but then with the time with

  • me, we're gonna go to the next level." I think, across the board, hopefully it'll have an

  • upward effect on the level of discourse. I mean, it's like a lot of people are gonna

  • have their gaps out of the way, so just everything, hopefully, will be more intelligent in the

  • classroom. Hopefully I'll take -- and anyone should feel free to leave, I'll hang out here

  • and answer a few more questions over the next, I think we're out of time, but, I'll do another

  • ten minutes of this and then we can just whatever. OK? "Do you have any ideas about how to engage

  • parents in their child's development?" The easiest way to do that, any parents, is actually

  • you should log on to Khan Academy right now, and you should start doing the math problems.

  • Although, I suspect, many of you already know a lot of this material. But we've seen over

  • and over again, that that fundamentally changes the conversation that happens at the dinner

  • table; when parents are also doing the same mathematics as their kids. I'll take one.

  • >>audience #11: Is there a chance that kids are just kind of like figuring out the trick

  • and sort of getting through the thing, but there's no real retention? Like ñ do you

  • do anything?

  • >>Salman Khan: No, no. Not only is there a chance, they are doing that. The kids are,

  • the fifth graders especially, it's amazing how good they are in gaming things, at figuring

  • out "Oh, that can't be the choice, that can be the choice." And so, it's a mixed blessing.

  • One is, we are watching them and we're saying, "Oh, they're just gaming that module." So,

  • we either have to make that module less gameable, make it free answer, or do something to it

  • so that it can't be gamed. Or, we have to add other modules to make sure that they're

  • really learning the concept. In terms of retention, we actually do have a thing that after X days,

  • if you haven't done a module or another module that covers that module, intrinsically covers

  • that same concept, it asks you to review it, so you get extra points to go back and review.

  • So, the model is, the ideal school would be, you're walking down the hallway in seventh

  • grade and all of a sudden, your fifth grade math teacher comes up to you and asks you

  • a fifth grade math question. And so, that's what we're trying to do. It is gaming, but

  • it is actually interesting because we actually saw that with the chain rule module. A couple

  • of fifth graders just figured out mechanically how to, even that's not easy though, but they

  • figured out just the pattern. But it was still cool. Well, one, I'd argue a lot of twelfth

  • graders are also doing that, but it was cool once they figured out the pattern. They started

  • to teach each other. So we actually even have this one view, you can see the cascade. Who's

  • the first student in the class and you can see the cascade of the other students right

  • after that, after one person gets it. But, with that said, is we did identify that as

  • -- we have to add more modules to make sure people really are understanding the concept

  • as opposed to just learning the mechanics.

  • >>presenter: So, if you just take one more question and after that, we have to basically

  • wrap up for the video also. But, as he said, he'll be hanging around and you guys can come

  • over and basically chat [ ].

  • >>Salman Khan: OK. I'll take it right here.

  • >>audience #12: So, as you said, the Khan Academy is definitely turning things around,

  • and how, in the classroom with this kind of self-instructed learning, how do you try to

  • reapply the framework of a grading system or a testing system to give the same kind

  • of progress feedback that people are expecting from education?

  • >>Salman Khan: Yeah, so the question, how do you do the same type of assessment, or

  • how can we start labeling kids if we're--. I think it's a good problem to have. Maybe

  • we shouldn't and I think the ideal is you take -- I actually do think it is good that

  • we do have these standardized tests, the SAT and the AP test, but the ideal is you don't

  • take them when you're 17, like everyone lockstep takes them when you're 17; you take them when

  • you're ready for it. So, there's some fifth graders and they're doing the Khan Academy.

  • When we have the 300 modules and we're like, "Look, statistically, it looks like if you

  • go and take the AP Calculus test right now", we can even give them a distribution. "We

  • think there's an 80 percent chance you're gonna get a five, a four or a five or something.

  • Go take it." And if there's a 17 year old who we think ñ "there's an 80 percent chance

  • that you're not gonna get higher than a three, don't take it yet. Just keep working. Wait

  • until you're 20, wait until you're 25, whatever. If your goal is to learn calculus". One thing

  • I'm hoping we can do, in a non-touchy feely way, cause a lot of people, when people say

  • "no grades," it sounds very touchy feely. It's the opposite. We actually want people

  • to master; everyone should be an A+ student. Everyone should have a hundred percent mastery

  • if they really wanna get to some future level. I mean, I can't tell how many, even when I've

  • interviewed, even in my past life, people who've gone through algebra, trigonometry,

  • geometry, calculus, blah, blah, blah, and they still don't know when to apply algebra.

  • What was the whole point of this non-mastery based learning? It was just a big jumping

  • through hoops and showing that you know how to do homework type of exercise. So, yeah.

  • I think it'll be a good problem that if there's no grades, and if there's literally just,

  • "We say you know this." And if you don't know this at A or B level, if we say you know it,

  • you know it at an A level. Cool.

  • >>audience #11: Thank you.

  • >>Salman Khan: Thank you.

  • [applause]

>>presenter: Good afternoon, everyone. Let's get started. It's an honor introducing, hosting

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作者@Google。薩爾曼-汗 (Authors@Google: Salman Khan)

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