LAHS Hosts Presentation From Khan Academy Founder

LAHS hosted a presentation from Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, a revolutionary online learning resource, today, October 17. Khan was the keynote speaker of the fifth annual Science and Technology Week at the school.

According to the non-profit organization’s website, the organization is “on a mission to provide a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.” This cause has become reality for the small team of individuals who have posted over 2,600 instructional videos on subjects ranging from basic algebra and arithmetic to calculus and finance.

Khan began the presentation with a story of his modest beginnings. The idea behind Khan Academy started in 2006 with Khan tutoring his cousins, and eventually grew as he posted videos on Youtube and netted the attention of large donors like Google and Bill Gates. Backed by these large corporations, Khan Academy prospered and expanded to reach over 1 million students a month.

What started as a simple software intended for his cousins expanded to reach an international audience over the course of a few years.

The goal of Khan Academy is to encourage a learning environment where students are encouraged to work and understand topics at their own pace, “building a foundation” so they can better participate in the classroom.

“What we hold fixed is the amount of time it takes to learn something,” Khan said. “Let’s make sure someone has a really strong foundation before we move on to more advanced concepts.”

Khan entertained the audience with the occasional off-hand joke and narrated his inspirational story at the same time. The sudden outburst of laughter followed by sporadic applause was a common occurrence at the presentation.

The keynote ended on a high note, with the inspirational story of Mark Halberstadt. Halberstadt pursued a music degree in college, thinking he lacked the skills in math for an engineering degree.

After following the trigonometry and calculus curriculums in the Khan Academy program, Halberstadt was able to complete a second bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Temple University. After an ovation, Khan answered questions from parents and students in the audience.

[Photos by Jacqueline Hoang]