Tag: online learning

This month, 60 Minutes ran an inspiring feature on why Salman Khan—founder of Khan Academy—decided to quit his job as a hedge fund analyst and devote all his efforts to revamping education, one online video at a time. The segment explains that Khan’s famous archive of thousands of comprehensible web lessons, which are changing the nature of tech-enabled classrooms, began as a simple one-on-one tutoring project.

With three science degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard, Khan was more than qualified when he took on the task of tutoring his 7th grade cousin. The internet solved the distance problem (Khan was living in Boston, and she in New Orleans), and Khan's simple, effective web videos solved his cousin's math woes. Salman Khan posted those self-made lessons online, and soon enough people caught on to just how radical his inviting and lucid clips actually were. His followers swelled to hundreds, thousands, then millions. Counted among those followers are Google and Microsoft, who are backing his project. Bill Gates, as it happens, used Khan's lessons to teach his own kids—an appreciation that culminated in the pair sharing a stage at TED last year.

Watch the full 60 Minutes segment HERE.