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There was a recent essay taking Khan to task for what the essayist saw as superficiality in Khan's coverage of world history. I am interested to see how the Hac

by edw 15y ago

There was a recent essay taking Khan to task for what the essayist saw as superficiality in Khan's coverage of world history. I am interested to see how the Hacker News community assesses the quality of materials that are related to subjects that are within the areas of expertise of many of us. On a related note, what many people here found a helpful introduction to Clojure was viewed with circumspection my some in the #clojure Freenode community. Assessing the quality of materials is made even more difficult by the challenge of finding the critics whose opinions are worth paying attention to.

irahul 15y ago
I don't think Khan claimed about teaching expert level material. `Superficiality` is a strong word. Zed Shaw's LPTHW is for beginners, but not superficial. Similarly, most of Khan's lectures target a particular audience. Some of his lectures are advanced, some are intermediate, some are for beginners...just the way it should be. Khan himself responded to one of superficiality claims here on HN(the one about history lessons).
- spicyj 15y ago
  Link to his response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2633796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2633796
shii 15y ago
This is a legitimate concern and I fear whenever I hear of people lauding things like the Khan Academy without ever having used the KA themselves significantly yet. Bandwagon praise is not good and I think constructive criticism is needed lest we fall into the irrational exuberance trap again. I think Sal and the rest of the crew at KA have been keeping this at bay by acknowledging all the good will and keeping on with the daily load of videos, enhancements to the site, open source initiatives with the exercise dashboard, and maximizing exposure with the press while not loosing vision of what they're doing or the quality of the material. That's a good thing. But I do agree, the material on KA is a little too soft and I would appreciate more higher level material but at the same accessibility and ease-of-use as KA. OCW efforts seem to be filling this gap for awhile, but I think there still needs to be something better. Thankfully, there's Youtubers like commutant[1] who does the same video style lectures as Sal on partial differential equations, numericalmethodsguy[2] who does lectures on numerical analysis, real analysis by Francis Su[3] on the Harvey Mudd channel, UNSW lectures[4] on engineering math, algebraic topology, and digital signal processing, JimBobJenkins[5] who does a fantastic and intriguing lecture series on Game Theory, TheIntegralCalc's[6] great videos on early calculus, as well as MathDoctorBob's[7] clips on a wide-ranging list of higher maths. Abstract algebra[8] by Benedict Gross is also another class I am currently going through, really fascinating. [1] http://www.youtube.com/user/commutant http://www.youtube.com/user/commutant [2] http://www.youtube.com/user/numericalmethodsguy http://www.youtube.com/user/numericalmethodsguy [3] http://www.youtube.com/user/HarveyMuddCollegeEDU http://www.youtube.com/user/HarveyMuddCollegeEDU [4] http://www.youtube.com/user/UNSWelearning http://www.youtube.com/user/UNSWelearning [5] http://www.youtube.com/user/JimBobJenkins http://www.youtube.com/user/JimBobJenkins [6] http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIntegralCALC http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIntegralCALC [7] http://www.youtube.com/user/MathDoctorBob http://www.youtube.com/user/MathDoctorBob [8] http://www.extension.harvard.edu/openlearning/math222/ http://www.extension.harvard.edu/openlearning/math222/
- jergason 15y ago
  These look great. I have been looking for more Kahn-style videos that were more advanced, but still not from an actual class like the MIT OCW stuff.
- commutant 15y ago
  Criticizing Khan's videos on history is shooting fish in a barrel; the videos are short and concise and history is long and complicated. I could write many paragraphs of what is neglected or biased in just about any introductory books on mathematics, but I wouldn't really be making a statement about their quality. Quality would be determined by evaluating these resources by their effectiveness at fulfilling their purpose. This is actually the root of the controversy in my opinion: the real purpose of all this online educational material (Khan academy, various youtube channels, MIT OCW, etc) is still pretty multifaceted and ill-defined. I'm making my videos because I think that well-crafted videos make material more appealing and accessible to a lot of people on the internet. My hope is that people who are already learning the material will supplement with my videos and people who are introduced through my videos will get interested and seek out other sources. In this sense I would hope that they provide a window OUT of the "Skinner box", as would any other reasonable piece of educational material that stokes the desire to learn.
- Despite 15y ago
  BTW, this is an incredible list. I've been coming back to it over and over for the past week. The Abstract Algebra lectures are great -- very fast, very interesting.
dxbydt 15y ago
I guess the accusation of superficiality is warranted if Sal is expected to weigh in with value judgements and instead he takes a hands-off approach. I think many of the soft-science topics ( econ, finance ) etc. aren't as value-neutral as two plus three equals five hardcore math. eg. http://www.khanacademy.org/video/is-short-selling-bad?playlist=Finance http://www.khanacademy.org/video/is-short-selling-bad?playli... The above video is supposed to be a discussion of virtues and vices of short-selling, but depending on who you are, you will tend to read it differently, because its impossible to be value neutral on that topic. Here's another one: http://www.khanacademy.org/video/are-hedge-funds-bad?playlist=Finance http://www.khanacademy.org/video/are-hedge-funds-bad?playlis... I guess finance geeks such as myself will find the question "Are hedge funds bad" itself a nonsense question. Its like asking "Is recursion bad ?". Unless you qualify it with more metrics, such as "bad to whom/what", what is "bad", as opposed to what is "good" etc.
tzs 15y ago
If it's the essay I'm thinking of, it was basically complaining that in a video that will billed as an overview of history, some things weren't covered in excruciating detail. I was not impressed by the argument.

by edw 15y ago

irahul 15y ago

I don't think Khan claimed about teaching expert level material. `Superficiality` is a strong word. Zed Shaw's LPTHW is for beginners, but not superficial. Similarly, most of Khan's lectures target a particular audience. Some of his lectures are advanced, some are intermediate, some are for beginners...just the way it should be. Khan himself responded to one of superficiality claims here on HN(the one about history lessons).

spicyj 15y ago
Link to his response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2633796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2633796

shii 15y ago

This is a legitimate concern and I fear whenever I hear of people lauding things like the Khan Academy without ever having used the KA themselves significantly yet. Bandwagon praise is not good and I think constructive criticism is needed lest we fall into the irrational exuberance trap again. I think Sal and the rest of the crew at KA have been keeping this at bay by acknowledging all the good will and keeping on with the daily load of videos, enhancements to the site, open source initiatives with the exercise dashboard, and maximizing exposure with the press while not loosing vision of what they're doing or the quality of the material. That's a good thing. But I do agree, the material on KA is a little too soft and I would appreciate more higher level material but at the same accessibility and ease-of-use as KA. OCW efforts seem to be filling this gap for awhile, but I think there still needs to be something better. Thankfully, there's Youtubers like commutant[1] who does the same video style lectures as Sal on partial differential equations, numericalmethodsguy[2] who does lectures on numerical analysis, real analysis by Francis Su[3] on the Harvey Mudd channel, UNSW lectures[4] on engineering math, algebraic topology, and digital signal processing, JimBobJenkins[5] who does a fantastic and intriguing lecture series on Game Theory, TheIntegralCalc's[6] great videos on early calculus, as well as MathDoctorBob's[7] clips on a wide-ranging list of higher maths. Abstract algebra[8] by Benedict Gross is also another class I am currently going through, really fascinating. [1] http://www.youtube.com/user/commutant http://www.youtube.com/user/commutant [2] http://www.youtube.com/user/numericalmethodsguy http://www.youtube.com/user/numericalmethodsguy [3] http://www.youtube.com/user/HarveyMuddCollegeEDU http://www.youtube.com/user/HarveyMuddCollegeEDU [4] http://www.youtube.com/user/UNSWelearning http://www.youtube.com/user/UNSWelearning [5] http://www.youtube.com/user/JimBobJenkins http://www.youtube.com/user/JimBobJenkins [6] http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIntegralCALC http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIntegralCALC [7] http://www.youtube.com/user/MathDoctorBob http://www.youtube.com/user/MathDoctorBob [8] http://www.extension.harvard.edu/openlearning/math222/ http://www.extension.harvard.edu/openlearning/math222/

jergason 15y ago
These look great. I have been looking for more Kahn-style videos that were more advanced, but still not from an actual class like the MIT OCW stuff.
commutant 15y ago
Criticizing Khan's videos on history is shooting fish in a barrel; the videos are short and concise and history is long and complicated. I could write many paragraphs of what is neglected or biased in just about any introductory books on mathematics, but I wouldn't really be making a statement about their quality. Quality would be determined by evaluating these resources by their effectiveness at fulfilling their purpose. This is actually the root of the controversy in my opinion: the real purpose of all this online educational material (Khan academy, various youtube channels, MIT OCW, etc) is still pretty multifaceted and ill-defined. I'm making my videos because I think that well-crafted videos make material more appealing and accessible to a lot of people on the internet. My hope is that people who are already learning the material will supplement with my videos and people who are introduced through my videos will get interested and seek out other sources. In this sense I would hope that they provide a window OUT of the "Skinner box", as would any other reasonable piece of educational material that stokes the desire to learn.
Despite 15y ago
BTW, this is an incredible list. I've been coming back to it over and over for the past week. The Abstract Algebra lectures are great -- very fast, very interesting.

dxbydt 15y ago

I guess the accusation of superficiality is warranted if Sal is expected to weigh in with value judgements and instead he takes a hands-off approach. I think many of the soft-science topics ( econ, finance ) etc. aren't as value-neutral as two plus three equals five hardcore math. eg. http://www.khanacademy.org/video/is-short-selling-bad?playlist=Finance http://www.khanacademy.org/video/is-short-selling-bad?playli... The above video is supposed to be a discussion of virtues and vices of short-selling, but depending on who you are, you will tend to read it differently, because its impossible to be value neutral on that topic. Here's another one: http://www.khanacademy.org/video/are-hedge-funds-bad?playlist=Finance http://www.khanacademy.org/video/are-hedge-funds-bad?playlis... I guess finance geeks such as myself will find the question "Are hedge funds bad" itself a nonsense question. Its like asking "Is recursion bad ?". Unless you qualify it with more metrics, such as "bad to whom/what", what is "bad", as opposed to what is "good" etc.

tzs 15y ago

If it's the essay I'm thinking of, it was basically complaining that in a video that will billed as an overview of history, some things weren't covered in excruciating detail. I was not impressed by the argument.