School considers using Khan Academy in classrooms

Students fill out classwork after watching a Khan Academy video.

Turn on many “space-age” movies, and chances are you’ll find a virtual classroom. Students are shown watching holograms of teachers instead of a physical teacher, and using tablets to complete their assignment.

These ideas have long seemed futuristic and out there, but the future may be closer than previously thought. Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, has created a system shockingly close to the depictions we see in science fiction.

This new education program is already in place in several schools kindergarten through 12th grade, such as Palo Alto’s Gunn High School, San Francisco charter school Envision and East Palo Alto’s Eastside Prep and may soon be added to Saratoga’s curriculum as well.

With Khan Academy, students watch an instructional video then complete the exercises that go with it. This seemingly simple idea, however, has evolved into an informative, fact-heavy way for teachers to explain course material.

Each teacher at Saratoga would have a “dashboard,” with which they can get information about how their students are doing. They can see which videos and exercises students have completed, how long it took them, if they needed any hints and more.

Khan contains material in many subjects, at many levels. However, since their founder, who makes most of the videos, has more science and math knowledge, these subjects are covered much more heavily than, say, Art History. Videos for subjects other than science and math are made by experts in those areas.

“We currently have close to 3,000 videos in our library, most of them made by Sal,” Khan representative Sundar Subbarayan said. “We also have approximately 250 exercises, growing at a rate of about 10 per week.”

Khan hopes to soon expand its employees to include professors who are experts in many areas, Subbarayan said. This way, the video library will be in-depth in many areas, not just math and science, and the videos can be created by reliable sources, as opposed to material found in open-edit sites such as Wikipedia.

One teacher is already trying out Khan’s videos in her calculus classes. Audrey Warmuth, who teaches AP Calculus BC and Algebra II Honors has assigned a few videos as homework, she says, in order to use class time for more discussion and homework time as opposed to her lecturing.

“They came in already knowing what I was going to talk about,” Warmuth said. “The Khan Academy videos are really good at setting up a foundation, but they’re not so good at the nitty-gritty teaching elements.”

In retrospect, Warmuth says she should have tried the videos in her Algebra II Honors classes instead, because Khan’s library is much more in-depth at this level.

Several students have already discovered Khan as a supplemental means to their regular school assignments, but some consider it to be better as a reinforcement aid rather than a study tool.

“When I look at Khan Academy videos, I feel that they’re kind of basic, compared to what we’re learning in class,” sophomore Anushree Dugar said. “It’s a good foundation for students to look at before coming to class, but they shouldn’t rely on it to study.”

It is currently unknown how soon, if at all, Khan’s system will be included in the school’s classrooms at a school-wide scale.

“We’re in a fact-finding mode, right now, in terms of finding out if this can help,” assistant principal Kevin Mount said. “Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is see if this is something that can help us free up class time in ways that are beneficial to students, so they can have more direct contact with the teacher instead of just passively listening.”