Sal Khan is a pretty brilliant guy who was working as an analyst at a hedge fund, but decided to give all that up for a more "human" goal. Or as he states in the video "Here I was an analyst at a hedge fund - it was very strange for me to do something of social value". This all started when he put up some videos for his cousins to help them learn math. The videos got great response from his cousins as well as lots of other people who thought his video method of teaching was helpful. So he gave up his job at the hedge fund to start a website where he does free videos of himself teaching all kinds of stuff : math, biology, chemistry, business, etc. The site and videos are free. Bill Gates fell in love with the concept and promotes the site often as well as has his kids using it. The site is : http://www.khanacademy.org Video from 2011 TED conference : <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gM95HHI4gLk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> FYI : Another similar learning site with college lectures from professors on video is http://www.academicearth.org.
I've used his videos on youtube as well as a general source of information/revision right before an exam and found it extremely useful. Even more so than what I learnt through the whole duration of a semester, though that might have been more to do with me panicing a few days before the exam. I applaud the work he's done in trying to help others without wanting anything in return.
Both the TED talks and the Kahn academy videos are available through utorrent "apps" Big fan of these and the teaching company lectures.... though those aren't free. Daniel Robinson's 50 great ideas in philosophy and " " " psychology series is gold. Great story teller. In searching for his name to make sure I was spelling it correctly, I found "Consciousness and It's Implications". I'm pumped.
I've seen it around thinking my niece could use it, but didn't realize he has segments on finance and even investing. Explaining the Geithner Plan. Wow.
I've watched some of his finance/investing/economy/venture captial markets videos. I did not know much about these fields but his videos provided a very good foundation. I would highly recommend anyone to give this a try for whatever subject that they are interested in on his website. Sal is an excellent teacher. Watching him get a standing ovation on TED for creating a huge library of tutorials for free gave me goose bump. I think he absolutely deserves it.
(bump for search feature justice) I just discovered Khan Academy last night... wow, I am amazed. It always helps brighten the day when you find someone that is making the world a better place.
Khan Academy helped me through physics last year. Used some of his other tutorials as well. Great stuff.
I had a foreign professor for business calculus last year and couldn't understand a thing. I stopped going to class midway through the semester except for quiz/test days just because I wasn't learning anything from her. Learned from Khan Academy on youtube the whole semester and got an A. Great resource.
For our school summer math assignment we were not given the usual packet with the few hundred problems but were instructed to go to khanacademy.org and do specific sections in the math section.. it was fun. on the parts where i was stuck, the videos explained it to me almost as if i were sitting back in my math classroom.
Just found this site after a friend was talking about it. Pretty amazing stuff. I hate to sound too dramatic, but it feels as if this is the beginning of one of the most revolutionary things in human history. After watching that video you can see how this potential revolution in education is in its infancy and how much more it can develop over the next decade. Very very cool stuff!
My cousin uses this site , it seems very helpful to learn various subjects that U.S lags behind comparable to the rest of the World. Science and Math are subjects where the U.S is falling behind many countries.
He left a job paying $800,000+ to do this, good on him. His videos are awesome if you are in High School, he teaches the fundamentals of math very well. His chem and physics videos are decent, but it's math that is his forte.
I am working with both Gates and him now on some stuff at our new company. A new way of teaching etc, though technology that kids have in their hands daily. DD
Very cool to hear that DD. Hope things go great with all that. This type of teaching would have been much more helpful to me when I was growing up.
It is really cool, the Gates foundation is really helping fund some unique projects, and we own the commercial rights when we are done with the games. We are doing high school math types of projects. DD
