How Should Technology Be A Part of The Reinvention of Education?

Salman Khan's view point on interactive education is very intriguing. I really like his idea of having the students watch the videos at home and then come to class and do the work with the teachers aide. I think having the video teach you with the capabilities to rewind and re-watch until you understand it, without being embarrassed to raise your hand in class. It all sounds so good! His exercises offer encouragement, hints, motivation and feedback; I like how he encourages experimentation and repetition until mastery is achieved. I think it is really neat how his knowledge map gets deeper and deeper once the core has been mastered.

The graphs and charts of the students' progress is really beneficial. I mean, it breaks it down to see how much time the student has spent on a specific problem, who needs help with what, which students have mastered a certain topic, etc. This helps the teacher see who needs more student/teacher time, peer to peer tutoring.

I think it is very interesting and the idea of a one-world classroom is very beneficial, but I'm just a little skeptical to the practicality of it. There are students who may not have the access to computers or Internet, so how can they see the videos at home? Overall, I am very impressed with what Kahn is doing. In fact, I sent the link to http://www.khanacademy.org/ to my nephew who is currently being tutored in math.