Anybody think that CNBC has delivered the latest unanticipated Internet service that's a (revolutionary) turn for the better?
If you peruse my blog, you know I'm a big fan of khanacademy.org and Sail Khan's library of over 2,000 9-to-15 minutes classes. Perfect for the Web, for our rapid paced lifestyle and increasingly limited attention spans.
Why do I think this new features turns khanacademy into a new class of school I'm going to call "hyperschools"? Because it is the beginning of the destruction of our view of education as a silo where school is school and it happens during school. With "CNBC Explains", CNBC and Khan are showing that learning can be more spontaneous, more targeted, more convenient and more "in the moment."
The parallel is with hyperlinks themselves. They give the Web its ability to cross-wire information. Following hyperlinks, you can follow all kinds of trails of content (knowledge). Hyperschools, of which there is now only one -- khanacademy.org --, provide the same flexibility. Let me educate myself by attempting to read this interesting article about LIBOR (inter-bank trading rates) and I'll click on these "Explain This" icons as I see fit in order to more deeply understand what I'm reading (by following a quick 10 minute Khan class focused on specified, relevant topic (to the article).
Another metaphor is the Star Trek-like scenario of "I want to be expert enough to follow this article on Treasury Bonds, so I'll take a pill on everything I need to know to understand the article.
Hopefully, you get the idea. It feels like a subtle new B2B enhancement of a company's web site (CNBC to Khan)... but the more I thought about it, the more I like the feeling I got of yet more breaking of old barriers to education. Love it!
Darn it, David - why do you mention KhanAcademy ... every time you do that I burn a couple hours!
ReplyDeleteBut after that couple hours of info-munching, I'm "still hungry" - just as frenetic web reading and wikipedia-skimming let me fool myself into thinking I know more than I really do, so too can an entertaining 10 minute lectures distract me from the hard work and sustained concentration I need to get an idea or technique far enough into my skull to be able to recall/use it later.
The KhanAcadamy is a hugely good experience ... but as a form of education, I wonder what depth of learning and meta-learning ("how to find out") happens in a "hyperschool." Do you find you _use_ what you experience with KhanAcademy?