By Jena McGregor, Washington Post
On Monday, the nonprofit TED, which puts on a popular annual ideas conference, announced it would be starting TED-Ed, an online collection of free video lessons delivered by the best teachers on a range of subjects. Khan Academy is the brainchild of Salman “Sal” Khan, a former hedge fund analyst that founded the service initially to help remotely tutor his cousin in algebra, only to find his videos going viral, his career changing as a result, and Bill Gates taking notice. Khan’s method—in which students watch videos to learn the lessons at home, and then work through problems in school with their teachers’ assistance—has been described by some as “flipping the classroom,” and is being hailed as a solution for better educating students and perhaps, as Sanjay Gupta suggested on 60 Minutes, “the future of education.” Commenters on 60 Minutes’ story are suggesting he should win the Nobel Prize. And yet, he has no PhD in education, no experience working for nonprofits to turn around schools, no time spent studying education reform in think tanks or universities.
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