TED Talk Tuesday: Salman Khan Uses Video to Reinvent Education

First off, this dude knows everything. :) And is so funny!

Watching this TED talk brought some interesting things to mind. I love how this amazing huge learning community started as a few videos so Khan could tutor his cousins.

Khan talks about the importance of reducing the embarrassment of learning. Even now, even after years and years of people critiquing my work, I still feel that tug of shame when someone points out a weakness in my manuscript, especially when I think I should have mastered that particular skill by now. So, I get that. I get the exquisiteness of being able to learn privately, to go over something again and again until I own it.

And I love the parallels between this talk and John Green's, which also discusses the value of community video learning. (When super smart people start saying the same thing, it makes me take notice!)



What would writing novels (or Picture Books) look like if we could watch videos on all the components, at our own pace, with examples and practice? I would love a Khan academy on writing!

I think the applications he talks about for self-paced learning in the classroom is amazing, especially since in the new model (dare I say-- Common Core) kids do not move forward until they master a skill. Which is a great idea, but so hard in practice, unless a model like this is adopted.

This idea of humanizing the classroom has lots of implications. It may change how I think of what we do at the Writers' Loft.

Do you use Khan Academy? Have you taken any online writing classes with video as the means of giving information? Did you find it as useful as the Khan Academy model?