Jan 55 min read

Open-Source Material: Khan Academy on Education

Are you looking for high-quality, free, and accessible educational resources for yourself or your students? If so, you are not alone. Millions of teachers and learners around the world are turning to open-source materials to enhance their learning experience and achieve their academic goals. Open-source materials are teaching, learning, and research resources that are freely available for anyone to use, adapt, and share. They include videos, courses, textbooks, software, and more. In this blog, we will explore some of the best sources of open-source materials for teachers and students, and how they can benefit your education.

One of the most popular and influential sources of open-source materials is Khan Academy, a not-for-profit educational organization started by Salman Khan in 2008. Khan Academy’s mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Khan Academy offers online materials covering subjects ranging from math and finance to history and art, with thousands of bite-sized videos, step-by-step problems, and instant feedback. Khan Academy also works with schools and districts to innovate how learning is done in the classroom and translates its materials into the world’s most spoken languages. Khan Academy has helped millions of learners of all ages and backgrounds to master new skills and achieve their learning goals.

FEATURES OF KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. We tackle math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more. Our math missions guide learners from kindergarten to calculus using state-of-the-art, adaptive technology that identifies strengths and learning gaps. We’ve also partnered with institutions like NASA, The Museum of Modern Art, The California Academy of Sciences, and MIT to offer specialized content.

Wide Range of K-12 Content. Khan Academy covers a wide range of K-12 content, it’s not just high school videos. Although you might have heard Sal Khan on 60 minutes, or giving a keynote presentation, to learn a bit about the origin of Khan Academy, this platform is way more than math tutorials. It might have started out this way, and yes, Khan Academy has lots and lots of math tutorials — with topics I frankly haven’t thought of since I was a high school student — but it is so much more than high school math tutorials. This is a resource that originally had a high school, or advanced math vibe, that has moved away from this one category. There is content for students of all ages — making it a great option for K-12 classrooms. When you open up Khan Academy a drop down menu will help you find content related to the topics taught at different grade levels. It makes it a quick resource if you are searching for a video to help support a student who might struggle with a strategy you thought they had learned in a previous grade, but know they could use the help with. The Math section on Khan Academy for example, starts with Preschool and goes all the way to High School and even has sections for Eureka Math and Engage NY Math programs.
All Subject Areas. On Khan Academy’s website you’ll find resources for essentially all K-12 subject areas. There are resources for students learning economics, fractions, world history, you name it. All you have to do is head to Khan Academy’s website to see the full list of what they have to offer. Straight from their landing page, without even creating a login, you can select the drop down menu labeled “Courses.” In addition to their beta ELA content for 2nd through 8th grade, there is a section for biology, US government and even Hour of Code Resources. When you click on a topic you’ll be taken to a special landing page. Here is where you’ll find videos and additional resources around the topic.
More Than Just Videos. Although the origin story of Khan Academy might have started with videos, there are now lots of resources on their website that go along with each topic. For example, if you go to the Courses drop down menu which mentioned before, choose World History, and then choose Byzantine Empire, there are two videos, and two articles with questions built in to check for understanding. The videos also have closed captioning options.
Classroom vs. Individual. Students can use Khan Academy individually or as an organized class. Well, a student can go to Khan Academy’s website and search for material that might help them better understand a topic — so more self-directed learning. Or a teacher or tutor can find a video and share it directly with one individual student who might benefit from diving into these types of materials. The other option is still focusing on an individual but more as a classroom initiative. Teachers can set up an account and assign practice exercises, videos and articles. Teachers can find the content that meets the needs of every student in a class and/or individual students. Then they can track student progress as they move through the materials. It’s a great way to use Khan Academy in a more organized way — although you might be really happy using it as needed as opposed to all of the time.
Family Sharing. Khan Academy are the family connections available on their platforms. Well there are several different use cases for Khan Academy when it comes to family use. Parents can sign up for their own account straight through Khan Academy’s homepage. This allows them to then set up Khan Academy for their own child. This is a great option for teachers who aren’t using Khan Academy in their classroom but want to recommend it as a resource for families. You might also decide to handpick two or three videos that connect to content you’re teaching each month and share with families in a newsletter. From a family perspective, it can help them better understand what is happening in your classroom and support their children as needed.
Khan Academy is Free. Khan Academy is totally free. A lot of EdTech tools are freemium, meaning you get some things for free and then you kind of top out and need to pay for something. Or a tool that has been free for a while then changes their pricing model and is given a price tag.

BENEFITS OF KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy provides a lot of benefits in providing an effective learning to students, and these are:

it provides free online lessons and practice in math, sciences and humanities and other subjects.
it provides remote learning resources and free tools to track student progress for teachers and parents.
it provides teachers with training resources.
it allows teachers to facilitate a rich and interactive learning between his/her students.
it offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom.