Khan Academy is an educational nonprofit that provides free online videos and exercises across a variety of subjects. Salman Khan creates the video content while experienced developers build out the platform. The platform allows students to learn at their own pace through videos and practice exercises. It also provides a coaching platform for teachers to track student progress over time and customize instruction based on individual needs. While the comprehensive video content and strong platform are strengths, developing content for all subjects poses a challenge given the nonprofit's reliance on donations.

1. Khan Academy
Giorgio Sironi (Nest Group)

2. Description
• Service: educational videos for
delivering content
• Platform for exercises
• Platform for coaching
– Tracking of students and their history as
they change tutors
– Tracking of topics and their reception by
the class

3. Description
• Users
– K-12 students
– Adults
• Main actors
– Content creator (Salman Khan)
– Platform creators (rockstar developers
hired by the foundation)
– Coaches: teachers who use the platform
as main support

4. Description
• Didactic objective: deliver content...
– at the student's pace and with possibility
of replay
– at the student's time and will
– and provide exercises targeting
excellence
• Business model
– It's a foundation! (IRS-recognized 501c3)
– Donation from Google, Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation...

5. Browsing the website:
homepage

6. Browsing the website:
homepage
• Video explanations of different
depths
– 2' introductions
– TED talk
• Promoters are shown
– Bill Gates
– Google

7. Browsing the website:
curricula

8. Browsing the website:
curricula
• Variety of subjects
– Mathematics and scientific subjects
– Economics and finance
–…
• Weaknesses
– Humanities (History, Literature)
• not suitable for teaching with registered
videos
– Soft skills (writing)
• require exercise and human correction

9. Browsing the website:
videos

10. Browsing the website:
videos

11. Browsing the website:
videos
• YouTube hosting
– Outsourcing lowers costs
– CreativeCommons BY-NC-SA license
• Features
– Categorization and comments
– Questions&Answers system powered
by students who watched the video all
over the world
• It's a large FAQ where a student's question is
usually already been answered by someone

12. Browsing the website:
practice sessions

13. Browsing the website:
practice sessions
• Path of exercises of increasing difficulty
• Randomly chosen exercises from a
particular subject's archive
– The student has to get 10 in a row correct
• Stage: mastery learning
• Students are not left behind: they can continue
exercises at different paces

14. Browsing the website:
coaching platform

15. Browsing the website:
coaching platform
• Enables usage in classrooms
– Students
• Knowledge map to get to know their position
• Video progress and exercises progress
– Data for the teachers
– Teachers
• Tracking of students in time (their whole academic life)
• Profile of students when they where with another
teacher
• Progress of the single student on a single topic

16. Strengths & weaknesses
• Comprehensive and consistent video
content
– All videos shot by the same person
– Different subjects
• Strong platform being built by some
of the best developers in the world
• No monetization: costs are high

17. Conclusions & take-aways
• Videos and other reusable delivery of content frees
up classroom time for exercise sessions
• E-learning can track students for their whole
academic life
• Finer statistics means a better usage of resources
– Teacher stays with students currently left behind
– Teacher can discover the problematic areas
automatically
– Proficient students (on a given topic) can tutor the others