Technology Review: Khan Academy

As a math teacher, this website can be very valuable for me.  Although I have not used it yet, it can be used many different ways.  Khan Academy, like the review below says, can be used as a facilitator for a flipped classroom as well as a way to differentiate in a traditional classroom.  I am really looking forward to the possibilities that this site provides in the years to come.  Here is the review below:

http://www.khanacademy.org/

1.       Summary: This website is one I have heard a lot about over the last few years, but I have not had a chance to use much yet.  It is the perfect tool to create a flipped classroom setup in a math class.  The Khan Academy provides thousands of videos and lessons that teach all different types of math concepts.  It then provides quizzes and tests to see if you understand the material.  Once you prove you have mastered the material, you can move on to the next topic.  If you struggle with a concept, you get to work on it some more.  It tracks your progress, helps you find areas you need more work on, and helps set goals for how to improve.  As a teacher, you can monitor every student’s progress on how they are doing, how often each student logs on, what topics they need help with, how long they took to answer each question, how many hints they needed to answer a question, etc.  It really gives you every piece of data you could possibly ask for on each student and on the class as a whole.  This would work in a flipped classroom by the students going home and watching videos to learn the topic.  Then they come to the classroom to work on the homework, either in class or on the computer in Khan Academy, while the teacher looks at who needs help with which topic and provides the more individual attention they need.  If students understand the concept, they can move on.  It allows kids to work at their own pace so they can speed up and slow down as much as they need.  This is also very valuable for a home school setting as it can be your math curriculum.

2.       Strengths

·         It’s free!!!

·         It provides easy-to-understand tutorials on different math topics.

·         It provides data for the student and teacher on how well they are doing in each topic and concept.

·         It allows for the setup of a flipped math classroom very easily.

3.       Weaknesses

·         It would require everyone in the class to have internet access at home, which is something we can almost expect but not quite yet.

·         It would take a lot of prep to set up an entire classroom of profiles and link them all together in a way that a classroom could function in this way.

4.       Who is this useful for?  This site offers math videos for all math topics K-12.  So this could be useful for any teacher elementary, middle, and high school.  It can also be useful for students in these grades that struggle to help the understand more and catch up.  On the other hand, students that excel can benefit from it by moving ahead at their own pace past their classmates.

5.       What is needed to use it?  To operate this site, all that is needed is an internet connection.  You can view videos without a profile.  To have the site track your progress, a free profile must be set up.  For this to work as a classroom setting, each student would need to be registered with the teacher designated as a “coach” for each student.