My first interaction with Edtech was a TED talk about a free learning service on YouTube called Khan Academy, about a decade ago.
I clearly remember Bill Gates himself introducing the man of the night Mr. Salman Khan, who had started a YouTube channel to tutor his family on the other side of the American coast in mathematics. Due to an increase in demand for his service after other people started viewing and his relatives sharing the videos, he ended up quitting his well-paying job in finance to pursue Khan Academy full time. Looking back at this story it now makes more sense than when I watched it on YouTube, from an internet café, over a decade because I have just realized that is the exact career trajectory that has led me to the Edtech lab.
Why I bring Khan Academy up is, it offers an array of subjects, from Math to English, to the Sciences, to space exploration, to Art and History that’s very interactive, progress tracked learning presented colourfully. Everyone and I mean, everyone understands when Salman Khan teaches- parents inclusive. The best part is this quality content is FREE and will always be, as their organization’s mission goes, “Our mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere”.
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empowers learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. They tackle Math, Science, Computer Programming, History, Art History, Economics, and more. Their Math mission guides learners from kindergarten to calculus using state-of-the-art, adaptive technology that identifies strengths and learning gaps.
Khan academy is the place to go because it offers:
Personalized learning
Students practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then accelerating their learning.
Trusted content
Created by experts, Khan Academy’s library of trusted practice and lessons covers Math, Science, and more. Always free for learners and teachers.
Tools to empower teachers
With Khan Academy, teachers can identify gaps in their students’ understanding, tailor instruction, and meet the needs of every student.
How do I recommend you use Khan Academy in Uganda?
If you have a smartphone as a parent, and your child does not have one yet, I urge you to share it with your child at this point, better yet take the lesson together with your child. This can be a bonding exercise and a fun thing to do and if your child has their own smart device, it is even the better.
- Go to the Khan Academy site and sign up khanacademy.org. This helps you have a more personalized and tracked experience
- Get the “YouTube go” app for mobile phones. This helps you to be able to know the size of the data bundle you’re using per lesson (recommend standard quality for clarity) and also has a watch offline option after you download it legally within the app.
- Follow your textbooks, curriculum and past lessons in your notes to watch lessons pertaining to areas that might have been confusing for you in class and watch them on Khan Academy and see if you notice a difference when you can rewind the teacher.
- Do the practice exercises after the lesson to create mastery.
We at the Edtech lab highly recommend and commend Khan Academy for their relentless effort to educate with well thought out and elaborative structure as well as flair, to better behaviourism learning please try it out and give us your feedback on it
In our effort to support learning we will continue to review and recommend other learning apps on this platform both locally built and international as long as they are socially relevant and can aid learning.
We would like to hear about some of the apps you are using to learn during this lockdown. It can be for kids, pupils, or students. Please let us know of any in the comment section and be sure to share it with anyone who might need this information.
As always, stay learning and most of all stay safe.
Edtech Lab Lead
The Innovation Village
