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Khan Academy Competitor? Alison.com founder on the future of Online Ed

40 points by daviday 15y ago

ashamedlion 15y ago
The whole site feels really cheap. I closed it at first because I thought I typed the URL in incorrectly and had landed on a parked domain. The best thing about Khan Academy is its personality, which makes the learning very accessible. It's a no bullshit content delivery system, but this feels like it's straight out of Generic Corporate Designer™. Also, if you want a clickable url: http://alison.com http://alison.com
- benregn 15y ago
  I agree with you on the site's looks, very uninviting... And that damn animated button in the right corner drives me crazy.
mythz 15y ago
It looks corporate and soulless - not fun at all.
Mizza 15y ago
Non-free content? A scrolling marquee and pulsating Join Now buttons? And calling your well established and much-loved competition 'buzz-heavy'.. yeah right. This isn't going anywhere.
acangiano 15y ago
I went to the site and it was virtually empty. A split second later I realized I had AdBlock Plus on. I disabled it and what I've seen looked like a spam site. I think the comparison with Khan Academy is extremely unjustified here.
- maxjaderberg 15y ago
  I agree the comparison is unjustified. What makes Khan Academy so good is the quality of Khan's explanations and teaching on the videos.
  - sandGorgon 15y ago
    I actually want to see an educational process/technique that produces content, even half as good as Khan Academy, repeatably. My question has always been - will Khan Academy lose relevance after Sal Khan ? Or is there a recipe that allows the creation of more Khan Academys.
    - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
      My question has always been - will Khan Academy lose relevance outside Sal Khan? He can't be an expert in everything. In order to scale, I'd expect that he'd have to be able to pick people who are great teachers and also domain experts.
      - bugsy 15y ago
        And he's not an expert in 90% of the things he teaches. He's just quite good at understanding things quickly and explaining it to others, like Feynman was. Being called Khan Academy is apropro, it's mostly about his teaching and he is irreplaceable. Fortunately, video lives forever and most of the subjects are not transient.
        StrawberryFrog 15y ago
        Feynman only taught physics. Sal Khan teaches maths, astrophysics, economics, history, etc etc... The potential for misinformation from someone who is teaching a subject that they are not an expert in, and have just "understood it quickly" is quite worrying. he has been criticised on this before, see http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=2029 http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=2029 Economics is a lot like maths, and there is crossover so it's no surprise that he is good at both. But History is a different kind of subject. If he is really irreplaceable, then there are severe limits on it. I hope and expect that even if Sal Khan is a trailblazer, others can do follow his example.
akarambir 15y ago
how can they win UNESCO award. Besides design, they are only promoting there diploma courses(paid) everywhere.
troymc 15y ago
I am happy to see innovation happening in how people get 'an education'. As usual, some of the most interesting stuff is being done by people outside the established providers (cf. The Innovator's Dilemma).
Sigi 15y ago
Khan Academy provides an easy way to download content for later offline viewing. This site, however, seems to try to do the exact opposite! Using flash to restrict consumption and bugging users with registration offers is not a better way to learn.
imp 15y ago
If anyone is interested in a less corporate, more fun version of Alison, I started Curious Reef a while back. It's a social learning website. For an example of someone actually learning something, here's a post by someone who just finished the MIT 6.00 Intro to Comp Sci class on Curious Reef: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduction/forum/topic/just-finished-the-class-100/ http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc...
fapi1974 15y ago
It's interesting - Khan Academy has such massive following, but from a technology standpoint I've seen much cooler stuff... www.smart.fm comes to mind.
- adeelk 15y ago
  Sometimes, clear and intuitive explanations can go a lot farther than technology.
0x12 15y ago
This is the polar opposite of what the Khan Academy is all about: reducing barriers, open transfer of knowledge, transparency, no middle men.
bugsy 15y ago
This article seems to be an ad for this guy's product, which is non-accredited college degrees from an online school. There's a lot of organizations doing online degrees, this is not very unique. The comparisons to Khan are bizarre.
dimitar 15y ago
Competing in what? They don't offer the same courses! Alison has stuff like "personal development", "touch typing" and even adobe products and a bit of Mathematics and Science, while Khan Academy is mostly Math and Economics in detail.

40 points by daviday 15y ago

The whole site feels really cheap. I closed it at first because I thought I typed the URL in incorrectly and had landed on a parked domain. The best thing about Khan Academy is its personality, which makes the learning very accessible. It's a no bullshit content delivery system, but this feels like it's straight out of Generic Corporate Designer™. Also, if you want a clickable url: http://alison.com http://alison.com

benregn 15y ago
I agree with you on the site's looks, very uninviting... And that damn animated button in the right corner drives me crazy.

mythz 15y ago

It looks corporate and soulless - not fun at all.

Mizza 15y ago

Non-free content? A scrolling marquee and pulsating Join Now buttons? And calling your well established and much-loved competition 'buzz-heavy'.. yeah right. This isn't going anywhere.

acangiano 15y ago

I went to the site and it was virtually empty. A split second later I realized I had AdBlock Plus on. I disabled it and what I've seen looked like a spam site. I think the comparison with Khan Academy is extremely unjustified here.

maxjaderberg 15y ago
I agree the comparison is unjustified. What makes Khan Academy so good is the quality of Khan's explanations and teaching on the videos.
- sandGorgon 15y ago
  I actually want to see an educational process/technique that produces content, even half as good as Khan Academy, repeatably. My question has always been - will Khan Academy lose relevance after Sal Khan ? Or is there a recipe that allows the creation of more Khan Academys.
  - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
    My question has always been - will Khan Academy lose relevance outside Sal Khan? He can't be an expert in everything. In order to scale, I'd expect that he'd have to be able to pick people who are great teachers and also domain experts.
    - bugsy 15y ago
      And he's not an expert in 90% of the things he teaches. He's just quite good at understanding things quickly and explaining it to others, like Feynman was. Being called Khan Academy is apropro, it's mostly about his teaching and he is irreplaceable. Fortunately, video lives forever and most of the subjects are not transient.
      - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
        Feynman only taught physics. Sal Khan teaches maths, astrophysics, economics, history, etc etc... The potential for misinformation from someone who is teaching a subject that they are not an expert in, and have just "understood it quickly" is quite worrying. he has been criticised on this before, see http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=2029 http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=2029 Economics is a lot like maths, and there is crossover so it's no surprise that he is good at both. But History is a different kind of subject. If he is really irreplaceable, then there are severe limits on it. I hope and expect that even if Sal Khan is a trailblazer, others can do follow his example.

akarambir 15y ago

how can they win UNESCO award. Besides design, they are only promoting there diploma courses(paid) everywhere.

troymc 15y ago

I am happy to see innovation happening in how people get 'an education'. As usual, some of the most interesting stuff is being done by people outside the established providers (cf. The Innovator's Dilemma).

Sigi 15y ago

Khan Academy provides an easy way to download content for later offline viewing. This site, however, seems to try to do the exact opposite! Using flash to restrict consumption and bugging users with registration offers is not a better way to learn.

imp 15y ago

If anyone is interested in a less corporate, more fun version of Alison, I started Curious Reef a while back. It's a social learning website. For an example of someone actually learning something, here's a post by someone who just finished the MIT 6.00 Intro to Comp Sci class on Curious Reef: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduction/forum/topic/just-finished-the-class-100/ http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc...

fapi1974 15y ago

It's interesting - Khan Academy has such massive following, but from a technology standpoint I've seen much cooler stuff... www.smart.fm comes to mind.

adeelk 15y ago
Sometimes, clear and intuitive explanations can go a lot farther than technology.

0x12 15y ago

This is the polar opposite of what the Khan Academy is all about: reducing barriers, open transfer of knowledge, transparency, no middle men.

bugsy 15y ago

This article seems to be an ad for this guy's product, which is non-accredited college degrees from an online school. There's a lot of organizations doing online degrees, this is not very unique. The comparisons to Khan are bizarre.

dimitar 15y ago

Competing in what? They don't offer the same courses! Alison has stuff like "personal development", "touch typing" and even adobe products and a bit of Mathematics and Science, while Khan Academy is mostly Math and Economics in detail.