Have you ever needed to do some simple math - figure a
percentage, find square footage, or add fractions - and you just can't quite remember
those lessons from middle school. If you are like me, sometimes it can be a
challenge to remember how to do the simple calculations that are needed
periodically at home and at work. Now there is a quick easy solution to refresh
your memory, and mine - KhanAcademy.org. This handy resource is just a couple
of mouse clicks away. It has lessons in 5 minutes or less segments that are easy
to understood and followed. Ever since discovering this I never worry about
forget how to do simple math - I just look it up.
This wonderful resource was created by Salman Khan, an MIT graduate who had a cousin in need of math lessons, so
he created short video lessons using Yahoo!'s Doodle notepad. Soon his lessons were teaching
others and he began putting them on YouTube. Shortly after he created a
website, KhanAcademy.org. What began as simple math lessons has grown into many,
many different subject available on the
site such as art history, science and computer programming. According to
Wikipedia the website now has over 6,000 micro lectures that have been
translated into many languages. In total, the micro lessons have been viewed over
468 million times.
The lessons have a very distinct style that mimic the
feeling of sitting next to someone and working out a problem on a sheet of
paper. The lessons can be learned in a planned
series based on skill level and now have optional tests to evaluate the true
comprehension. The quality of the series is impressive for a free online
resource - whole classes can be taken for free. The site can connect to your
Facebook or Google+ accounts which helps keep track of your progress, although
it is not posted or made available to others. The learning potential on this site
is amazing - yet I still use it to help me remember simple math.
"I'd say we've moved about 160 IQ points from the hedge
fund category to the teaching-many-people-in-a-leveraged-way category. It was a
good day [when Salman Khan's] wife let him quit his job" - Bill Gates
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