Khan Academy...A noble Pursuit..

Education at every Doorstep!            

A global classroom

Ever heard of such a statement…Sounds Interesting.. One more look..Seems impossible…. This impossible has been made a reality by Khan Academy, an online Education Portal that  shares the Vision: 'Providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere’.

As Khan puts it  ‘highest possible social return on investment’.

   

                                                                                                                                                                                           

What is Khan Academy…?      

Khan Academy is an online educational portal that supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history etc.    

Salman Khan, Founder Khan Academy.

 It is  a non-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi   American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The Education Portal  supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube  teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics and microeconomics, and computer science.

Tutorial at Khan  Academy

Each small Step Matters, nothing better than  Khan Academy epitomises this.

Speciality:

KHAN ACADEMY has completely revolutionized the way education is delivered into a much effective and efficient way. It has challenged the  traditional academic model, where in students can work at their own pace and no distinction is made between the Learning skills of a student.  It Promotes the concept of Blended Learning where in Students learn from their peers.

There is no scope of missing any particular lecture as everything is stored in the digital archive. Also the student to teacher ratio is 100% and no student have their doubt suppressed.

86.6 million lessons and 100 million + exercises have been imparted through,Khan Academy.This number far exceeds the number of students educated by Harvard since its inception. 

 Business Revenue Models           

Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization now with significant contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google. In 2010, Google announced it would give the Khan Academy $2 million for creating more courses and for translating the core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages, as part of their Project .Khan Academy has eclipsed MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) in terms of videos viewed -Its YouTube channel has over 150 million total views, compared to MIT's 38 million.

Conceptual – Technical –Human skills

Khan Academy has conceptualised  the idea of free education for all, by creating an  Online Education Portal that is providing free education to millions on diverse subjects at different levels.

Technical Skills: Technology for education

It provides an opportunity to learn as many times as the recorded  video sessions are made available on the net.A great deal of Analytic is being used to arm teachers with data that helps them gauge the level of learning of each student. 

Human Skills: The portal connects directly with the students, thus making a personal contact with each individual. It feels as if learning through a personal tutor.

The theory X & Y Assumption Application

The idea here is that the students are given an opportunity to learn at their own pace.The teachers do not interfere with their learning, in fact they use this time to analyse the performance of every student across different topics and find if any help is needed or not. This practice has shown exceptional results.

This case can be taken as analogous to Theory Y Managers where no supervision is needed, on the other hand motivated employees lead to exceptional results.

Innovative new generation organizations        

 

Khan Academy epitomises the concept of Innovative and New generation Organisations. Use of technology , so creatively highlights the insight of this organisation, This marks a shift from the traditional forms of organisation, in fact poses a challenge to the current system of organisation.The growth rate of Khan academy over the few years since its establishment, is an outcome of Creative Problem Solving and a High level of Decision Making that has seen the organisation grow so fast in such a small time span.           

Authority, and power

With almost no levels of authority, the orgisation displays a change from the current Organisation system.Being a not for orofit organisation this model has greatly worked for Khan Academy,and it continues to be successful with individuals united by a common goal of social improvement, helping the organisation grow at each step.

Future Plans:

At present , the Khan Academy plans to confine itself to the  developed world,wherin the access to the intenet is very easy and the idea has been practically implemented. Being non profit organization, the Scalability of the organisation has been questioned , but it has proved its critics wrong at every step.In the near future, Khan academy aims at replicating the same model in Asia and Africa where the educational system has been nearly in the dol drums.It plans at attaing its vision:’ : ‘providing a high quality education to anyone,anywhere’

Khan Academy is probably the best thing to happen to Education System, in the last one decade.The rate at which it is growing, generates very high expectations in the near future……..

As they say,'Well Begun is half done, the Journey has just begun......'