Just letting people see their progress (for math exercises) is really very motivating.
I’m excited about a related aspect of it, that usually gets overlooked: the Khan Academy guys can get fine-grained statistics over a large population to see what’s working, what isn’t, and to what degree. And they can vary things, doing A/B tests to figure out what problems or explanations or reward systems are the most useful for which clusters of students.
Looking at the sort of people they’re hiring, I’d say this is pretty much inevitable, and I look forward to it.
I’m excited about a related aspect of it, that usually gets overlooked: the Khan Academy guys can get fine-grained statistics over a large population to see what’s working, what isn’t, and to what degree. And they can vary things, doing A/B tests to figure out what problems or explanations or reward systems are the most useful for which clusters of students.
Looking at the sort of people they’re hiring, I’d say this is pretty much inevitable, and I look forward to it.