Yes, the primitive way Khan uses his “virtual chalkboard” bothers me too, but I think the lessons will be updated eventually.
Personally I don’t find that RSA Animate adds that much value in terms of communicating something more efficiently—I find myself occasionally distracted by the illustration process. Personally I think the best way to teach topics like math and all the natural sciences from biology to physics would be a virtual reality setting… imagine putting on glasses and being totally immersed in a kind of virtual reality, where you can see molecules and electrons and where you can manipulate them or take notes in the air (imagine xbox kinect implemented in your glasses, facing outward and tracking your hands).
Not everything would need to be interactive though, the lectures could be 10-15m long and drive home a point with maximum force. (In a way a virtual chalkboard couldn’t). So yes, Khan Academy needs to evolve—but RSA animate style lectures wouldn’t be the most effective for retention and interest, compared to other forms of presenting and interacting with things that could be implemented nowadays if the money and interest was present.
This is going to vary from person to person, and I have no idea what will turn out to work best for the most people. But I strongly prefer RSA—I find it engaging, and the visuals help reinforce concepts through multiple avenues in my brain. Simple podcasts leave me bored, but the visual/audio combo keeps giving me new information at just the right rate.
Interactivity would allow for kinesthetic learning as well. An education program for iPad that incorporated audio/visual/kinesthetic learning styes and could adapt itself to the student’s preferences would probably be ideal.
I’d still strongly suspect virtual reality glasses like these http://www.vuzix.com/consumer/products_wrap310xl.html would be preferable to just tablets (glasses + tablets combo would perhaps be best). Don’t underestimate the value of being “isolated” while watching a lecture.
Monkey don’t see and hear no people → monkey don’t talk to people. To that end virtual glasses would be very powerful for focusing attention and certainly better than simply switching the paper for tablets. With glasses students would be isolated and could focus better than if distracted by everything that’s going on in the classroom. The teacher still can and should of course regularly employ group-work as a counterweight, but right now students just talk way too fucking much about everything that’s not related to learning and a tablet wouldn’t counter that trend.
I’m not discounting VR, I just have no experience with it so I can’t really endorse it yet. I can imagine what an individual or group with an iPad learning application would look like and make predictions about how it would work. I really don’t have a frame of reference for VR goggles.
Yes, the primitive way Khan uses his “virtual chalkboard” bothers me too, but I think the lessons will be updated eventually.
Personally I don’t find that RSA Animate adds that much value in terms of communicating something more efficiently—I find myself occasionally distracted by the illustration process. Personally I think the best way to teach topics like math and all the natural sciences from biology to physics would be a virtual reality setting… imagine putting on glasses and being totally immersed in a kind of virtual reality, where you can see molecules and electrons and where you can manipulate them or take notes in the air (imagine xbox kinect implemented in your glasses, facing outward and tracking your hands).
Not everything would need to be interactive though, the lectures could be 10-15m long and drive home a point with maximum force. (In a way a virtual chalkboard couldn’t). So yes, Khan Academy needs to evolve—but RSA animate style lectures wouldn’t be the most effective for retention and interest, compared to other forms of presenting and interacting with things that could be implemented nowadays if the money and interest was present.
This is going to vary from person to person, and I have no idea what will turn out to work best for the most people. But I strongly prefer RSA—I find it engaging, and the visuals help reinforce concepts through multiple avenues in my brain. Simple podcasts leave me bored, but the visual/audio combo keeps giving me new information at just the right rate.
Interactivity would allow for kinesthetic learning as well. An education program for iPad that incorporated audio/visual/kinesthetic learning styes and could adapt itself to the student’s preferences would probably be ideal.
I’d still strongly suspect virtual reality glasses like these http://www.vuzix.com/consumer/products_wrap310xl.html would be preferable to just tablets (glasses + tablets combo would perhaps be best). Don’t underestimate the value of being “isolated” while watching a lecture.
Monkey don’t see and hear no people → monkey don’t talk to people. To that end virtual glasses would be very powerful for focusing attention and certainly better than simply switching the paper for tablets. With glasses students would be isolated and could focus better than if distracted by everything that’s going on in the classroom. The teacher still can and should of course regularly employ group-work as a counterweight, but right now students just talk way too fucking much about everything that’s not related to learning and a tablet wouldn’t counter that trend.
I’m not discounting VR, I just have no experience with it so I can’t really endorse it yet. I can imagine what an individual or group with an iPad learning application would look like and make predictions about how it would work. I really don’t have a frame of reference for VR goggles.
I certainly support the experimentation though.
Word.