When I reminisce back to the good ol’ elementary school days I remember sitting in a cluster of four desks, surrounded by my classmates, who like I was, were all learning a lesson taught to us via an overhead projector. I am talking about one of those projectors that had a lightbulb that would reflect off onto a chalkboard (yes chalkboard, not a dry erase board). Now I have myself feeling like a eighty five year old women, but as an eighteen year old looking back on how much has changed in such a short amount of time in classroom settings just proves how many technological advances have been made in our classrooms. A major advancement that has been made and implemented in classrooms and in homes around the nation has been Rupert Murdoch’s Khan Academy.
Rupert Murdoch argues that educators must harness technology to spark students’ imaginations. Murdoch is the inventor of Khan Academy, a service that provides an online library of math videos and assessments for students to use that is individualized that motivates students with immediate feedback and rewards. Murdoch began his quest to find a way to help all types of learners when his niece asked him for math tutoring. The problem was they were about 1000 miles apart. Murdoch made a tutorial like video which quickly went viral and developed into Khan Academy.
Khan Academy is “…changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere.” What Murdoch has done has transformed the way children around the country are learning and he’s using today’s technology to the fullest. With these step by step videos students morales and confidence levels boost. In a study done with a pilot classroom children showed signs that they were more motivated, and seemed to be more engaged. We can’t expect a monkey to be able to swim, or an elephant to be able to climb a tree, but what we can do is help students to learn in a way that is best for them all as individuals.
This is really interesting to think about. With my mom being a teacher I know my fair about the education system and about how it can be unfair to many students how learn differently than the way that is traditionally taught in class rooms. It's good to see that somebody is working hard and trying to find ways to fix that.
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