I am sure it is extremely helpful for an self-directed adult user. I plan to use it for my more advanced students in an independent study to teach Python. My complaint is one size does not fit all. I don't see the difference between flipping and giving homework. Where students come in prepared to discuss and work on a topic that they had previously studied. The homework should be based on a plethora of materials such as books, newspapers,TED interviews, Wikipedia, communications with people from around the world, and then you-tube video's. Let's not fall into that terrible hole and limit ourselves and say this is the education of the future. There are lots of ways to go but unfortunately so far we statistically decline worldwide.
I am very interested in what Khan Academy is doing, but I see one big problem. This problem is the video. I don't see how assigning homework to read a chapter in a textbook and to solve a certain number of problems differs in concept from watching a video. The fear is we will have an illiterate society with the attention span of 15 minutes. Actually this is not a fear it is a reality. I assign a chapter to read with exercises and during class review the exercises as if it was a tutoring session. I look at the answers and without statistics I know who is falling behind. I make my students retake a test until they get 100.
So I am not saying I am a great teacher. I am a computer programming teacher and feel passionately that a programming literacy program in school should be taught at a young age. Using technology is great but we must be careful that we don’t produce a world of blind computer users. I see school districts stagnating in some former world, and I see the entrepreneurs barreling ahead by digitizing school curriculum. I know we desperately need change but no matter how good intentioned by giving into the you-tube generation we run the risk of short sited non-readers and this scares me.
Authored Comments
I am sure it is extremely helpful for an self-directed adult user. I plan to use it for my more advanced students in an independent study to teach Python. My complaint is one size does not fit all. I don't see the difference between flipping and giving homework. Where students come in prepared to discuss and work on a topic that they had previously studied. The homework should be based on a plethora of materials such as books, newspapers,TED interviews, Wikipedia, communications with people from around the world, and then you-tube video's. Let's not fall into that terrible hole and limit ourselves and say this is the education of the future. There are lots of ways to go but unfortunately so far we statistically decline worldwide.
I am very interested in what Khan Academy is doing, but I see one big problem. This problem is the video. I don't see how assigning homework to read a chapter in a textbook and to solve a certain number of problems differs in concept from watching a video. The fear is we will have an illiterate society with the attention span of 15 minutes. Actually this is not a fear it is a reality. I assign a chapter to read with exercises and during class review the exercises as if it was a tutoring session. I look at the answers and without statistics I know who is falling behind. I make my students retake a test until they get 100.
So I am not saying I am a great teacher. I am a computer programming teacher and feel passionately that a programming literacy program in school should be taught at a young age. Using technology is great but we must be careful that we don’t produce a world of blind computer users. I see school districts stagnating in some former world, and I see the entrepreneurs barreling ahead by digitizing school curriculum. I know we desperately need change but no matter how good intentioned by giving into the you-tube generation we run the risk of short sited non-readers and this scares me.