Khan/Koller Review

     I have had the Khan Academy app on my phone and iPad for quite some time and have used it with students that I mentor at our elementary school.  It was something I used a couple of years ago and honestly haven’t revisited it until now and wow a lot of forward progress and many more tools to access.  I will be having my son experiment with the math modules and see what he thinks and possibly reintroduce this again to my students that I work with this year.  I believe that any tool that we can provide our children/students to continue to engage them in learning and enjoying it is a huge benefit.  When I work with my son or others at our school I do run into the situations where how I was taught a method does not align with today’s methods; so I say if they don’t align yet our students are getting the concepts and showing their work, I would as a teacher give them the credit and recognition on learning another method of problem solving.  Khan Academy does align with Common Core and does provide links to educating parents on what that means and how the lessons align with public education. 

            I think we are living the future of online education now and will continue to move faster and faster into this world.  How amazing it would be to truly provide best practices of educating our children (all our children) and worry less about how well they perform on an OAA test or have our teachers worry less about the security of their jobs and pay based on test scores but focus on learning.  Not just focusing on learning but how each child learns and truly customize their education.  I would never have imagined that today we would have the choice to have our children enrolled in an online school and that is in less than 25 years; the next ten are truly going to wow a lot of us and scare the rest.  My hope as I get into the classroom is to blend the two worlds and styles of teaching to ensure creative minds of the future.

As I started to explore Coursera.org I obviously searched the subject of Teaching and Education and saw some interesting courses that I may get more serious about taking.  However I think what I loved from the TedTalk was Daphine Koller talking about being a life learner; so I would love to learn more about Neuroscience and how the brain works and believe it or not it was there.  If I am reading CSCC Prior Learning Assessment that it is possible to receive credit for Coursera courses with the presentation of a portfolio demonstrating the knowledge acquired to receive credit for the given course.  You will need to meet with your advisor to work out the details of what needs to be presented into the portfolio however it is possible.  What I do like about what I have reviewed is the ability to move around based on my base knowledge of the subject.  Without being able to access a syllabus and dive deeper into the content of the class from a quick view I am a bit more intimidated by the University name and known professors.  This should excite and motivate me and I know that the level of effort shouldn’t change because of a school name however it did cross my mind.  Not having enough confidence in myself could cause me to doubt if I could handle a course offered by a Professor from Harvard. 

            This is the first that I have heard of MOOC and I am excited for many reasons.  I have worked with open software and freeware before yet never linked it to education.  I think for it to be the wave of the future we have to stop thinking that education is best mass produced and that we must educate the same across the world.  Clearly we are already overcoming these perceptions however I cannot imagine the lives we can touch by being more open to these concepts.  I was amazed by the numbers of how education costs have increased 559% since 1985; what does that say about us and costs continue to rise.  I have no idea how it will be possible for my 11 year old son to attend college at this rate.  I hope that I brave this new way of education and try it out personally and see how it works.  I know that my husband during his courses was able to provide four major portfolios in lieu of several classes showing that his life application of work gained him the knowledge he would have received in school.  It was a lot of documentation, video taping and work however he is a licensed therapist today and was able to accomplish that task sooner because of Prior Learning Assessments.