Title: How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education
The general article by Clive Thompson in their work, How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/all/1) is about a Man named Sal Khan, who has created a new way of teaching. He makes videos in his house and posted them on the Internet for anyone to access and learn from. Teachers and schools caught on to these videos and some decided to use them in classrooms. They have their students watch these videos at home and learn the material there, and then at school teachers help their students with things they didn’t understand or had difficulty with. This seemed to help many students because they could get the one on one attention of their teacher in class and it seemed to understand more. Also the kids that understood the topic do not get bored in class because they can just move on to the next subject while the teacher helped the struggling ones. This way teachers can help everyone at their own pace witch is very important for students and their learning process. However Thompson talks about some schools and teachers not agreeing with Sal Khan. He talks about someone who thinks Schools have become “joyless test-prep factories,” and Sal Khan is just supporting this. That learning on the Internet is just one perspective and that it is “factorized” to standardized test. But many schools and administration agree with Sal Khan and see that these videos have helped lots of students succeed in school.
One of the arguments made by Clive Thompson in his work, How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education is that teachers can keep an eye on the progress of their students by a dashboard system, according to Sal Khan. More specifically, Clive Thompson argues that teachers can see how long, when, and where they watched these educational videos by Sal Khan. He writes, “He envisioned a dashboard system that would track students’ individual statistics, showing them and their instructors how many videos they’d watched, how many questions they’d answered, and which ones they’d gotten wrong or right”. In conclusion Sal Khan wants to give teachers the power to track everything their students do involving his videos on the internet along with some of his and the teachers practice test and quiz’s.
In my view, Sal Khan is wrong, because he should not be giving teachers that much power over their students. More specifically, I don’t think teachers should have the right to stalk their students that much. It is an invasion of privacy, especially if students are forced to use his videos. It is different if someone agrees to a website, such as Facebook, to use there services and for them to monitor it. But not if students have no choice on using the software or not, then it should not be monitored. For example if their was a flaw in the system and information on students computers got out to more then just the teacher there could be a huge privacy issue. People have a right to privacy and some of them take it very personally. They don’t want their information circulating around the Internet and they should not be forced to. Therefore, I conclude, that Sal Khan has no right to give teachers permission to use a dashboard system to track their students progress.
There are many privacy issues all around the world today and it is a very touchy subject. An example of this is in an article by the Huff Post. It argues that Facebook’s privacy settings are not truthful and safe, according to Max Schrems, a student in law school in Austria. More specifically, Max Schrems argues that Facebook has information that he is not okay with them having. He writes. “Facebook sent him a detailed dossier of his activity for the past three years: a CD containing more than 1,200 pages of Facebook wall posts, messages, removed friends and "pokes," among other things. Schrems thought he had deleted most of that activity, but Facebook had stored it, he said.” In this passage, Schrems is suggesting that Facebook still has information he doesn’t want them to have, even after he deleted it off of his Facebook. In conclusion Schrems belief is that Facebook does not have the right to keep this information in their databases after he has deleted it off of his profile.
In my view, Schrems is wrong, because it was his choice to get a Facebook. More specifically, I believe that Facebook has every right to keep the information on their records, even if it has been deleted on the users profile. For example, if there is a threat on Facebook but the user then deleted it Facebook would still have that threat on their records to report it and hopefully save an innocent from occurring. Although Schrems might object that keeping these records is an invasion of privacy, I maintain that it is just a security issues and not a privacy invasion. Therefore, I conclude, that Facebook is doing nothing wrong by keeping all data that appears on their website.
This is just one of many examples of how privacy is a big issue in todays society. People value privacy and don’t want it to be taken away from them. However Sir Khan says,” They use quizzes, homework, and their own observations to try to figure out how much their students understand, but it’s a crude process. Day to day, it’s hard to know what a student is and isn’t learning. A dashboard, Khan says, can change all that.” Although he thinks that it will help teachers evaluate their students and says nothing about how it is invading their privacy. He may say that since it helps the students, privacy is not an issue. However I disagree with that because privacy is always an issue. We have a right to privacy and it should always be upheld.
This does not mean Sal Khan’s videos should not be out there at all. He should just make some changes to his program. For example, he could have a privacy setting on his videos as well as an agreement. This would allow students to decide whether or not their teachers could be looking at their information. Also it would allow students to decide if they agree with the agreement policy. However some people may still not be comfortable using a website at all because they are afraid of what could happen to their information even if a privacy setting is put into place. So then it is up to the teachers to not demand their students using Sal Khans videos. Just like Sal Khan is doing by innovating education , we can also innovate his educational strategies.
The general article by Clive Thompson in their work, How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/all/1) is about a Man named Sal Khan, who has created a new way of teaching. He makes videos in his house and posted them on the Internet for anyone to access and learn from. Teachers and schools caught on to these videos and some decided to use them in classrooms. They have their students watch these videos at home and learn the material there, and then at school teachers help their students with things they didn’t understand or had difficulty with. This seemed to help many students because they could get the one on one attention of their teacher in class and it seemed to understand more. Also the kids that understood the topic do not get bored in class because they can just move on to the next subject while the teacher helped the struggling ones. This way teachers can help everyone at their own pace witch is very important for students and their learning process. However Thompson talks about some schools and teachers not agreeing with Sal Khan. He talks about someone who thinks Schools have become “joyless test-prep factories,” and Sal Khan is just supporting this. That learning on the Internet is just one perspective and that it is “factorized” to standardized test. But many schools and administration agree with Sal Khan and see that these videos have helped lots of students succeed in school.
One of the arguments made by Clive Thompson in his work, How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education is that teachers can keep an eye on the progress of their students by a dashboard system, according to Sal Khan. More specifically, Clive Thompson argues that teachers can see how long, when, and where they watched these educational videos by Sal Khan. He writes, “He envisioned a dashboard system that would track students’ individual statistics, showing them and their instructors how many videos they’d watched, how many questions they’d answered, and which ones they’d gotten wrong or right”. In conclusion Sal Khan wants to give teachers the power to track everything their students do involving his videos on the internet along with some of his and the teachers practice test and quiz’s.
In my view, Sal Khan is wrong, because he should not be giving teachers that much power over their students. More specifically, I don’t think teachers should have the right to stalk their students that much. It is an invasion of privacy, especially if students are forced to use his videos. It is different if someone agrees to a website, such as Facebook, to use there services and for them to monitor it. But not if students have no choice on using the software or not, then it should not be monitored. For example if their was a flaw in the system and information on students computers got out to more then just the teacher there could be a huge privacy issue. People have a right to privacy and some of them take it very personally. They don’t want their information circulating around the Internet and they should not be forced to. Therefore, I conclude, that Sal Khan has no right to give teachers permission to use a dashboard system to track their students progress.
There are many privacy issues all around the world today and it is a very touchy subject. An example of this is in an article by the Huff Post. It argues that Facebook’s privacy settings are not truthful and safe, according to Max Schrems, a student in law school in Austria. More specifically, Max Schrems argues that Facebook has information that he is not okay with them having. He writes. “Facebook sent him a detailed dossier of his activity for the past three years: a CD containing more than 1,200 pages of Facebook wall posts, messages, removed friends and "pokes," among other things. Schrems thought he had deleted most of that activity, but Facebook had stored it, he said.” In this passage, Schrems is suggesting that Facebook still has information he doesn’t want them to have, even after he deleted it off of his Facebook. In conclusion Schrems belief is that Facebook does not have the right to keep this information in their databases after he has deleted it off of his profile.
In my view, Schrems is wrong, because it was his choice to get a Facebook. More specifically, I believe that Facebook has every right to keep the information on their records, even if it has been deleted on the users profile. For example, if there is a threat on Facebook but the user then deleted it Facebook would still have that threat on their records to report it and hopefully save an innocent from occurring. Although Schrems might object that keeping these records is an invasion of privacy, I maintain that it is just a security issues and not a privacy invasion. Therefore, I conclude, that Facebook is doing nothing wrong by keeping all data that appears on their website.
This is just one of many examples of how privacy is a big issue in todays society. People value privacy and don’t want it to be taken away from them. However Sir Khan says,” They use quizzes, homework, and their own observations to try to figure out how much their students understand, but it’s a crude process. Day to day, it’s hard to know what a student is and isn’t learning. A dashboard, Khan says, can change all that.” Although he thinks that it will help teachers evaluate their students and says nothing about how it is invading their privacy. He may say that since it helps the students, privacy is not an issue. However I disagree with that because privacy is always an issue. We have a right to privacy and it should always be upheld.
This does not mean Sal Khan’s videos should not be out there at all. He should just make some changes to his program. For example, he could have a privacy setting on his videos as well as an agreement. This would allow students to decide whether or not their teachers could be looking at their information. Also it would allow students to decide if they agree with the agreement policy. However some people may still not be comfortable using a website at all because they are afraid of what could happen to their information even if a privacy setting is put into place. So then it is up to the teachers to not demand their students using Sal Khans videos. Just like Sal Khan is doing by innovating education , we can also innovate his educational strategies.
