Sal Khan - Using youtube for Education

[Islandman]

Quite an impressive collection of material:

Website:

http://www.khanacademy.org/

TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan...education.html

[Islandman]

Don1 I think this would interest you.

[Exile]

Which one in particular? This posted sm time ago too...

[Rudi]

This guy is very good. Been aware of him for a while. His math lessons have helped a lot of youngstersl.

[Islandman]

The TED talk explaining the ideas he has in mind on how to change the way education is delivered. I am always on the lookout for ways to use technology to improve and increase access to education and learning.

Never saw when it was posted before, sorry.

[Jawge]

Great guy. It only endorses my point about GSAT; telling kids they are not smart and that they are failures. What if these kids got a laptop with internet access and Khan's academy?

Maybe this is where the PM opted to go. Nice, but why not propose for all primary schools to be wired, end GSAT and set standards in high schools.

I said it: if a kid has net access and is serious elementary through secondary is a breeze. Learrning calculus up to vector analysis will put these students on the level to enter institutions such as MIT (watch their first physics course for science students and you will see what I'm saying)

[Islandman]

All valid points....and if you had listened to the audio you would have heard that the now-PM is no fan of GSAT because it is simply a filtering process that is only necessary because we do not have enough decent high schools.

You would also have heard what he thinks it would take to fix some of these problems. You may choose to agree or disagree on that but your "end GSAT" suggestion is not a plan. It is an objective.

What is clear is that whatever the solution is it will not be cheap and will take effort from not just govt but many of us who have an interest in improving education in Jamaica.

[Jawge]

************$$ him say dat? Mi haffi go lissen di audio den.

Nanny P Yuh haffi watch dis man yah, mine him.....

Anyway it's just promises as usual. Ja needs another Joshua ( some one who is not afraid to make changes, whether revolutionary or otherwise), Ja will be in very serious trouble if certain moves aren't made. I use Bill Joy's essay as pivot (why the future doesn't need us) to see what's now to then. Have you read Bill Joy's essay?

[Don1]

Yep his effort is very interesting...was not familiar with him

Stanford U is offering a free artificial intelligence course online to anyone right now....50,00+ people worldwide signed up...live video streaming from the Prof's classroom

Big tings ah gwaan

[Islandman]

Have not read Bill Joys essay, send me a link nuh.

People who are looking for a Messiah typically will be forever waiting. Me nuh have time nor patience fe dat. Govt. feet need to be held to the fire to do thier job yes, but ideas and solutions come from all sources.

[Islandman]

ITunes University is another rich source. Stanford has a very popular iOS development course there among others, and nuff other universities have released thier course lectures on ITunes U.

Content is readily available and free, the big challenge is to increase the accessibility and the actual use of it.

[Don1]

true dat...awareness is critical

[Exile]

I agree with you..the Messiahs have failed...on both sides...we just a collective responsible government who have Jamaica as their primary focus. Whenever that happens, I'm ready to serve. The tribalism destroying us to the core.

[Jawge]

Here is the link :http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/ch3.pdf

Joy's thesis is that artificial intelligence will one day outstrip the intelligence of humans (by the brute force of computing power) thus enslaving humans (just as what happens in the TV series battle star galactica and terminator). Whilst this may be so in the distant future I used his arguments in the manner of an inductive proof. In short I used his essay to apply to present day and what I see isn't pretty.

Another visionary Michio Kaku wrote a new book The physics of the future ( a must read); here Prof.Kaku took the pains of visiting the best minds in science on the land and in the west. He then speaks of technologies which to many may seem to be far fetched but in truth is here already (some I know for myself as a fact that exists).

Kaku's thesis is that the info age will move the planet to what physicists call a Type 1 civilization (a civilization we would now attribute to aliens from outer space) in the next 100 hudred years. What he isn't saying is that most nations around will not make it to this type of civilization (maybe this was what the Bible was saying The same can besaid of Joy's essay. One can see clearly where nations will cease to exist when these dominant advance societies begin to compete via trade and commerce.

Look at Ja most of the present day tecnologies (flat screens et al) are direct by products of quantum physics. Is there strong research on Ja's part in this area? How many publications does the tertiary institutions in Ja out out on this field? The math education is woefully lacking hence it would be hard to see Ja even coming out here. At present the west and emerging economies are too far ahead with hardware which is derived from quantum physics. Guess where there still exsists an opening for Ja? The software. What amazed was the fact that Prof.Kaku spoke of the lag in software. I quote: "The real bottleneck is software. Creating software can be done only the old-fashioned way. A human—sitting quietly in a chair with a pencil, paper, and laptop—is going to have to write the codes, line for line, that make these imaginary worlds come to life. One can mass-produce hardware and increase its power by piling on more and more chips, but you cannot mass-produce the brain. This means that the introduction of a truly augmented world will take decades, until midcentury."

This window of opportunity will not stay for long Ja. Instead of thinking about mining bauxite, think about mining the net, mining databases.