This is exactly it. I have been trying to tell people that the Nobel Peace Prize is not the "Awesome Person" prize. Nobel was very clear on what a person had to have been working on before receiving the prize.
In the words of Alfred Nobel: "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". [1]
Apparently, for some strange reason, someone nominated Adolf Hitler, too. Now I learned at least something today.
The majority of people who received the Nobel Peace Prize did fuck-all for world peace (e.g. Yassar Arrafat - a terrorist, Henry Kissinger, Barrack Obama - fighting two wars and starting a new one in Pakistan, Al Gore - he made a movie, etc...).
Al Gore and Barrack Obama received their prizes for "not being George Bush". That is about it. The Nobel Peace Prize is useless bullshit (as is the Nobel Prize in Literature).
This seems like a noble effort, but Khan seems like the type of guy who likes to be left alone, contributing to the world as best he can. Spending time at TED would just slow him down.
I disagree, after seeing a video of him give a talk in front of a medium size crowd. He came across as excited, informed, innovative, an excellent communicator and a great guy. I think he's in the best-of-TED bracket already.
Thank you for the links, they're brilliant. Especially the first one, really gives you an insight into the man who's getting me (and thousands more around the world) through college. :)
I tend to agree. If he was invited I'm guessing he would reluctantly agree (hard to say no to the exposure), but would feel a little hesitant stepping into that crowd.
TED started off great but seems like it has gotten a little weird over the last few years. Not sure how to explain it - maybe it's because most of the talks feel like mental masturbation at this point - they make people feel good, but don't result in action. Or it could be the liberal slant (the subtext of some of the talks seems to be "this is why we deserve more government funding").
From listening to a few of Sal's videos on finance, he seems to be more of a free market capitalist guy which may not mesh well with that crowd. A lot of this is speculation though, so I could be wrong.
I could have sworn he already did a TED Talk - I remember first learning of Khan Academy from TED - but now there seems to be no trace of him on the TED site.
Am I crazy, or did he do a talk that was subsequently removed?
Thanks - that is the video I saw. The format is so similar to TED, though, that I wonder if he'd have anything substantially different to say in a TED talk.
His contribution is impressive, but it has a long way to go.
Good online instruction presents very different challenges not found with traditional classroom teaching or "professor-as-focus" videos. It's an instructional medium unique to itself, and still finding its legs.
I completely disagree with course content that's been created using poor-quality audio and "visuals" (not video). "Good enough" is not only disrespectful to the student but completely unnecessary given the quality and cost of great content production tools available the past four years.
Higher-quality means more post production work, however, but it's worth it because "when it's done right, it will always be done right."
Four rules have emerged so far in this new medium: 1) The material must take center stage, not the presenter, 2) students prefer granularity of subject matter in short vignettes, 3) done well is always done well, promoting repeatable instructional excellence, 4) high-quality audio/visual production tools are a must.
A lot of us, not just Sal, employ these principals in our work. But overall, it needs to bake a little more before being presented at TED or before the MacArthur Foundation.
The educational paradigm is shifting, and indeed being disrupted, but not in the way most people think.
To me this sounds like much of the pedagogy I grew up with in the late 80's, which emphasized production values over clear presentation, or assumed that production values were an indicator of quality of presentation.
The underlying assumption then was that "modern students" needed to be "entertained" or somehow spoken to "in their own language" whatever that is. Your points, especially "high quality audio/visual production tools are a must", echoes that sentiment to me.
All in all that seems to me more disrespectful to students than letting the subject matter speak for itself, and assuming that young students are as capable as we are of seeing the magic in geometry, or calculus, if it is correctly and clearly explained.
Edited: Also, producing 1600 videos puts him rather apart from others in the field, even those producing awesome graphics.
How the hell is it disrespectful? The guy has done all this work and put all of this content on the web for anyone to view FOR FREE!
I can watch it or if I don't like it, I can not watch it and it I have not lost a single thing other than a moment of my time.
In terms of quality I mean, what do you want? While watching and listening I can clearly understand what he has written and said and that's all that matters.
It seems many disagree with you and for that I'm glad, since it shows me that there at least some people on this planet that will value the substance of the message over how appealing it is presented.
Absolutely not - he has defined a new paradigm in education by force of will. He has proven that one person can make a huge practical difference. Arguably he has achieved more good than facebook. To put it bluntly, the man is a force of nature, if not a god :]
I think part of his magic, is that he didn't wait to polish his presentations to conform to the powerpoint school of banality. He got the content out in an honest me-to-you no-bs way that students can relate to - he seems authentic in a way most teachers are not, and he seems to put no effort into making him self look good, as there is no faculty to impress.
MIT OCW is fantastic content and well presented, but the standards of communication are lower not higher than Sals, imo.
> "Good enough" is not only disrespectful to the student but completely unnecessary given the quality and cost of great content production tools available the past four years.
Evidently a LOT of people disagree with you.
Mr. Khan seems to have an MVP (minimum viable product). Just possibly this is one of those cases where if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Actually, the pedagogy of his videos is the thing that the opposite of "broken". Khan has an excellent teaching style, and gets his points across rather well. So calling it "pedagogically broken" is completely ridiculous. If you had said it was "productionally broken" you might have an argument (although, I'm not sure "productionally" is really a word :-D ).
Khan could indeed use fancier tools to produce his short videos, but what really makes them valuable is the content. I don't see that the current presentation style detracts from the teaching value one bit.
Why no, as you can clearly see, I'm talking about talking about doing. It gets an order of magnitude easier with each derivative! (which was the point)
