Open Educational Resources

Katie Ash and Ian Quillen are staff writers for Education Week Digital Directions.

"By now, you've probably heard of Sal Khan, the educator who began by creating videos to explain math to his cousins, which has grown into a library of over 3,000 assorted educational clips with more than 150 million views on YouTube. The resulting Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide students with free access to all those resources, has received grant funding from educational philanthropy giants like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

KF:  I think its important to read this with an awareness of how and why its occurred and against the backdrop of all the Khan Academy popularity. There’s areal risk that the very substantial baby will be thrown out with the relatively shallow bathwater.

Many other factors come into play around the affective and conative dimensions of learning.  The critique is largely on the basis of teaching - learning is domain of the learner.  In a collection of resources like Sal Khan's there are bound to be the odd error - non-example is a key part of concept attainment.  Video's can easily be re-recorded to remedy faults, but there is a growing body of evidence that resources like Khan Academy have had significant impact on improving student engagement.  Learning isn't about "getting it right" - tha's the role of assessment.