Blog Post #14

Option 2: Khan vs. Karplus
Karplus is a huge critic on Khan Academy. There's so much negativity on this website, yet I read it to see what he had to say. In Khan Academy Criticism, Karplus first displays his video and Sal Khan's video on the subject of Elevators. Khan's video is of course an illustration and explanation of forces in an elevator. Karplus's video is of his students(voices) constructing the mathematical models themselves. Following is a video and directions of Karplus' invention, the spring scale up and down. Lastly, is an application phase where he asks the students to design an experiment to address the concerns about the school's elevator acceleration. In my opinion, his applications are actual lessons, while Khan's are simply examples for back up and reassurance.

During Karplus's final remarks, he gives a link to MIT OpenCourseWare. Here he tries to point the finger at Khan for copying and not being original. However, after observing, I wasn't impressed. First, there's only 39 videos. Next, the topics were on a much higher level. In fact, majority of the topics were titled engineering. Next, he tries displays two videos he feels explains exactly why Khan Academy is wrong. I chose to explore Dan Meyers' Math Curriculm Makeover. In the video, Meyer explains that teachers shouldn't rely on a set of sample problems to explains abstract concepts. By doing this, it fosters students' creativity. He doesn't actually say Khan Academy is the result of this, yet we all know Karplus believes so.

Lastly, he argues that today we can catch students in classrooms staring at a laptop for hours, being drilled, and watching videos. I agree there are some teachers like that, however they only teach. There are many others that are educators and they will only utilize Khan Academy as a reference or to enhance their students' learning. I plan on doing the same because Khan Academy has a broad selection on various subjects and quizzes that follow.