Khan Academy was a serendipitous initiative, which introduced a revolutionary approach to pedagogy . Khan had a passion for teaching early on. He had certain special strengths that supported his passion. His baritone voice, clear tone, impeccable articulation, ability to convert complex concepts into simple interpretations, his ease with apt illustrations, and above all his unquestionable grip on the subjects he taught were some of the strengths that Khan carried. He took pleasure in helping students with mathematics and science. In 2003, Khan had offered online tuitions to his cousin Nadia, using the Yahoo Doodle notepad. This caused a buzz among his relatives and friends and resulted in further demand for his tuitions.

In 2006, for the first time, he opened an account on YouTube and shifted his offerings from Yahoo Doodle to YouTube, which expanded the scope and reach of his tuitions. His lessons drew people’s attention, and the views of the videos increased rapidly. In no time, people across the world grew familiar with Khan’s offerings. His YouTube account started receiving hits from all around the world. ...

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METHODOLOGY

Khan Academy created a new approach to learning, which was based on educational videos. Khan had a vision of the school of the future, where students would not have to go through bland, lackluster textbooks. With a clear focus on digitization of education in mind, Khan worked toward designing instructional videos on the internet.

In 2006, Khan started making educational videos, primarily in mathematics, and then later on other subjects as well. Khan’s primary attempt while making the videos was to make them informal and easy to understand and to take the learning to everybody. He wanted to make the learning as stress-free and enjoyable as possible........

FUNDERS

“This guy is amazing ” were the words of Bill Gates (Gates) to describe Khan on one occasion in 2010. Gates spared no opportunity to praise Khan for his teaching acumen and the quality of his lectures. He also claimed to have used Khan’s videos to teach his own children and to brush up on his own knowledge of around the subjects offered by Khan. Gates looked at Khan Academy as a paradigm shift in the education system. He described it as a revolution where technology integrated with quality education aimed at educating the world . In 2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $1.5 million to Khan Academy, which was in 2011, followed by a further stimulus of $10 million. ....

CRITICS

While on the one hand, Khan’s videos received enormous attention from the student as well non-student audience, on the other, they came in for strident criticism from conventional academicians of mathematics and other subjects, who questioned the very method of teaching Khan followed. Critics claimed that the only thing that differentiated the conventional teaching from Khan’s approach was the intervention of technology.....

IMPACT

Despite the criticism Khan faced from different quarters, it was found that Khan Academy was making a visible impact on pupils and teachers. A two-year study by SRI International involving nine locations, 20 schools, and more than 70 teachers in the California school districts, USA, reported that Khan Academy had emerged as one of the most desired supplementary resources to the core curriculum in the schools. Khan Academy was, in principle, used as a support platform tool – and not as the core primary curriculum. The Academy, which boasted of about 10 million unique users per month as of February 2014, saw a significant surge from about 144,000 per month in early 2010. ....

EXHIBITS

Exhibit I: Visual of a Khan Academy’s Online Lecture Session Screen
Exhibit II: Performance Badges at Khan Academy
Exhibit III: Khan Academy's Supporters
Exhibit IV: Khan Academy's Supporters