NEW YORK – Khan Academy, a free online courseware created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School is transforming the lives of millions across the globe. Started with a mission is to provide “free world-class education for anyone anywhere,” the website offers more than 4,500 micro lectures via video tutorials on YouTube. The subjects offered are mathematics, history, medicine, finance, physics, astronomy, economics, computer science, and many others.
It is the credibility in variety of courses offered at no cost; each month about six million students head to Khan Academy for online video lectures. The best question at this juncture is will the Khan Academy offer high school diplomas and college degrees in addition to digital content?
When GIGAOM asked the prime question to Salman Khan, at the New York Times’ Schools for Tomorrow conference, he did not confirm it but didn’t deny it outright either.
All he said was, “For the next two to three years his non-profit is ‘heads down focused’ on making Khan Academy the best possible learning tool and proving the benefits of personalized, mastery-based learning.” He also agreed that the question gets something that is “close to my heart,”: competency-based learning; adding, “students make progress based on the amount of time they spend in a seat, not how well they can demonstrate mastery of a skill or concept. “
The former Senator and Governor Bob Kerrey, who shared stage with Khan at the conference, said that the founder’s comment sounded like a “yes” and added that he thought Khan dodged the question.
“He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, he didn’t say maybe, meaning he’s probably going to do it, right? I spent 16 years in politics and I heard a “yes,” Kerrey quipped.
The idea of a third-party organization, outside of traditional academic circles, offering a new kind of credential is gaining traction. The startups like Degreed and Smarterer, in addition to the non-profit Mozilla’s Open Badges initiative, are beginning to point the way to new models of certification. In wake of such an hour, there is greater possibility that Salman Khan would go ahead and offer a college degree or high school diploma from his academy.
