Making Computing Fun Again: Passion, Beauty, Joy, and Awe on Khan Academy

Transcript

1. Making Computing Fun Again DISCOVERING PASSION, BEAUTY, JOY, AND AWE

   ON KHAN ACADEMY

2. Why do I care? 2 Me, discovering computing… …AKA discovering

   how darn fun it was:

3. 3

4. How it started: The real-time environment 4 ACE editor JSHint

   ! BabyHint ! Loop Checker ProcessingJS

5. …and look what they made! 5 BEAUTY-fUL!

6. Next step: An interactive curriculum 6 talk-throughs challenges Drawing Variables

   Animation Text Functions Logic Looping Arrays Objects

7. Self-paced 7 DON’t STIFLE the passion! https://medium.com/@pamelafox/let-students-learn-programming-at-their-own-pace-dc18cb23e131#.xb76c6pjm “I used Khan

   Academy because allowed for differentiation between students. I love how it allowed our valedictorian and our lowest ranked student to coexist in the same class without either getting bored." progress in a class after 5 hours:

8. Finally: Deeper learning with projects 8 + peer evaluations from

   this… …to these! JOY! "The projects are fun and lead to ideas for more projects.” "I LOVED evaluating projects." "The projects really challenged me & forced me think about the skills I'm learning in order to apply them." …and struggle!

9. Improving the curriculum: talk-throughs 9 BEFORE AFTER quantitative qualitative +

   council of elders

10. Improving the curriculum: challenges 10 quantitative qualitative

11. 11 Hopper (...is a HER!) Winston Oh Noes Guy, the

    Error Buddy The whimsy! JOYFUL! JOYFUL!

12. 12 Community & collaboration Content questions Help requests

13. Sharing & discovering programs 13 Awesome!

14. 14 wow! Contests & clubs

15. 15 Does this approach work for everyone? • Gender: Yes!

    60%/40% male/female student ratio, with equal completion rates across genders. • Age: Varies. <1 2 years old have lower completion rates, especially as course gets harder (e.g. logic). Adults have lower retention rates, due to getting busier or not finding it practical enough. cs-blog.khanacademy.org/2014/03/challenge-completion-across-gender-and_4.html