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Saturday, October 08, 2011

Salman Khan - Changing Education Delivery Paradigm

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Now this is absolutely amazing. The non-linear growth can and will lead us to uncharted territories any time soon. Soon we will test unheard waters, much before anyone of us could have ever imagined. I serendipitously came across the real life hero Salman Khan and couldn't resist immediately sharing his views and amazing work virtually....

His simple, useful website provides free real online video tutorials . This model can actually and will infact change the way Education is delivered in our classrooms. Its free, its intuitive, it worked for me so I am sure it will work for you as well. No more do now need to feel shy about not knowing some fundamentals of biology or finance. I watched couple of sessions and really enjoyed and learned from it. Hopefully you too learn about the topic of your interest.

In the small town, I grew up, even good books were not available those days. Any by the way I am not talking about a situation few decades ago. So what the issues were more fundamental those days, such as what to read and what to learn. Thankfully situation has changed a lot in past one decade and I suddenly feel much old, such has been the pace of change in past decade.

During my short stint teaching kids in my neighbourhood as a part of Tech India campaign,  I realized that the Education for All, is not a very difficult issue. Just a very small amount of thinking and execution related issues needs to be addressed. The kids and their families I met were highly motivated, charged and wanted to learn, even on weekends, unlike me. As a kid I always was looking forward to Saturday and Sunday and under rarest of rare circumstances I used to open my books. So, these kids and their families were even getting decent scholarships and aids from the local government bodies to buy books, school fees etc. The school building though was very basic but it existed. So what was the problem ? The  biggest problem was they hardly had 2 teachers ! So for no faults of theirs, these kids were deprived of their future.

While innovative campaigns such as Teach India and Teach for India, provides opportunities for working professionals to make a difference, the solution developed by Khan Academy can nicely complement the efforts of Teach India and several such non profits. As Salman aptly states in his speech - the beauty of all these lessons is- timelessness. They are available forever, at virtually zero cost !! So will this solution make real teachers, redundant. No, I dont think so ! Technology is and will remain a powerful enabler (until the armies of AI induced robots conquer us all !!). These video tutorials, will compliment the Teachers, will help them improve their own efficacy and will make sure that more and more pupil in the classroom actually learn.

Salman Khan academy can address the problem of good quality teachers available in remote areas of India and elsewhere to a good extent.This simple concept is definitely a game changer in far many ways then you and I can even dream of tonight.

Fortunately our beloved GOI has declared the Right to Education, but they have no clues and it seems no intentions either to think about how to turn this yet another political gimmick into something meaningful. Anyways, enough said. Please watch this video and if possible share and celebrate the joy of learning !


5 comments:

  1. Nitin, that is a very meaningful post. Yes, internet has revolutionized learning and can be used as a potent tool for spreading literacy in remote areas.

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  2. A very nice share, Nitin! This is amazing work Salman is doing and I sincerely hope his efforts bear fruits! Small steps like these from such influential people can make a lot of difference to the current scenario and help in improving on them, nice work!

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  3. @ Alka, Arti- I am glad you liked the Salman's work. Do share about it with your friends as well. I think anybody at any point in his career can immensely benefit from free, elaborate lessons available at Khan Academy.

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  4. thanks Gulraiz. I am glad you found the article useful.

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  5. This blog is nice and amazing. I really like your post! It's also nice to see someone who does a lot of research and has a great knack for writing, which is pretty rare from bloggers these days.
    Thanks!

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