Khan Academy Already Had My Attention
Khan Academy already had my attention as an educator (and a grandmother.) So I ordered Salman Khan’s book, Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and why that’s a good thing) the day it became available. Sal Khan is, after all, the creative mathematician who drives Khan Academy, now serving millions of students world-wide. Khan wrote this book to explain how he is incorporating the AI revolution into Khan Academy and what it means for education in general.
Khan Just “Made a Few YouTube Videos”
Sal Khan didn’t mean to start a global revolution in education. He started by posting short YouTube videos for his young cousins who needed some help with their math homework. He realized they were missing some concepts, so he broke down the information into bite-size pieces, and demonstrated it in the videos. A lot of students found the videos.
Khan Academy Ate Sal Khan’s Life
Hundreds, then thousands of people used the math videos. Khan spent a lot of time making videos to meet the growing demand. He finally quit his job to focus on Khan Academy, which he determined would always be free for anyone to use anywhere. Donations helped him survive financially. The Gates Foundation saw results from his work and helped out. He’s been recognized as one of Time’s Most Influential People in the World.
Khan Academy and ChatGPT
Before ChatGPT by OpenAI was released to the public, causing both massive celebration and anxiety among educators everywhere, the president and CEO, Greg Brockman and Sam Altman, emailed Sal Khan and proposed that Khan incorporate AI into Khan Academy to showcase positive uses of this new level of technology. The result of this collaboration will soon be available as WorldSchool.com, and other applications. Already in place is an AI tutor, Khanmigo, which guides students toward deeper learning by Socratic questioning rather than just giving answers.
Salman Khan is first a mathematician. He views education from a unique perspective as someone who is driven by data and doesn’t answer to a school district or to community expectations. This freedom produced the phenomenon of Khan Academy. I think we can expect to see Khan demonstrate positive uses of AI in education and that Khan Academy and World School are the places to watch.
Khan Says AI Will Make Teachers More Valuable, not Less
Khan demonstrates that AI tutoring and video instruction for mastery at whatever pace the student needs frees teachers to spend more time in deeper conversation with students. Teachers are needed more than ever to explore meaning, ethics, community, and connections between disciplines. If students can master the basic facts or their studies with an infinitely patient AI tutor, then they can feel confident engaging in deeper level classroom discussion. Education is a great equalizer, and AI, Khan believes, can spread quality education much further to more people than has ever been the case in history.
AI is Potentially Wonderful and Potentially Horrible
As educators, we all can see how AI use could go terribly, horrifically wrong. I won’t go into the fears of cheating and deep fakes filling up the edu-sphere. Let’s take Sal Khan seriously — he’s earned that respect. We need to teach AI literacy so our students and ourselves understand what it is and how it works. We must make the best use of AI we can for the benefit of both students and teachers.
Brave New Words, by Salman Khan: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for educators.
APA Citation: Graham, Y. (2024, July 3). Brave New Words by Sal Khan: A Book Review by Yvonna Graham. [Blog Post]. Accessed at
www.dyslexiakit.net on [date].