Craig Silverstein, Google Employee #1, Leaving for Khan Academy

Re:Craig Silverstein, Google Employee #1, Leaving for Khan A... by apl on Thursday February 09, 2012 @01:05PM (#3572183)

  > Khan said that they are currently working on a platform
  > to make it easier for anyone to add things to KhanAcademy

That strategy appears to ignore what made KA as successful as it is -- quality content. His 10 minute lessons on, say, calculus are genuinely well-made and effective; not too rigorous, but helpful and to the point. If they fully open up, KA becomes YouTube with exercises.

Not what I find exciting about KA. Educational standards should be enforced, which necessitates the hiring of educators. I'd be disappointed if Khan falls into the good ol' Silicon Valley trap: believing that it's all about technology and platforms.

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Re:Craig Silverstein, Google Employee #1, Leaving for Khan A... by Symmetry on Thursday February 09, 2012 @02:06PM (#3572516)

I don't know, as if they have a good enough method of evaluating lectures and only promoting the good ones. After all, look at the success of Wikipedia as compared to other encyclopedias. There is an important difference, of course, in that the ways you can incrementally improve a video lecture are much narrower. Still, though, there must be many qualified people who would be willing to record lectures for free, which doesn't have to be a full-time job like the technical side.

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