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Thordarson thought Khan Academy would merely be a helpful supplement to her normal instruction. But it quickly become far more than that. She's now on her way to "flipping" the way her class works. This involves replacing some of her lectures with Khan's videos, which students can watch at home. Then, in class, they focus on working problem sets. The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school. It sounds weird, Thordarson admits, but this flipping makes sense when you think about it. It's when they're doing homework that students are really grappling with a subject and are most likely to need someone to talk to. And now Thordarson can tell just when this grappling occurs: Khan Academy provides teachers with a dashboard application that lets her see the instant a student gets stuck.

The Social Learning Academy (SLA) is therefore intended for learning professionals who are new to social media and would like to find out more about the different technologies, their application to learning, as well the new mindset and skillset required for their use.

This one is a real winner, Keith, thanks! Can't wait to get our new group into Google Reader, Diigo, and pull some of the first group along, too, whoever is up for the ride!

Every college teacher I know is bemoaning the same kind of thing. Whether it's rude behavior, lack of intellectual rigor, or both, we are all struggling with the same frightening decline in student performance and academic standards at institutions of higher learning. A sense of entitlement now pervades the academy, excellence be damned.

This is from March of 2011??? Keith, did you post it because it resonates with what you're seeing in Florida now? I don't think this rudeness describes Albany State U, just the obvious unpreparedness of the students. Our writing lab specialists do encounter demanding students sometimes, but I think it's fairly rare, and I haven't heard of extended bad feelings.

Siemens' thoughts about the impact of open courses on learning and the Academy.

In 2008, I started a non-profit organization called the Khan Academy to deliver free online education. As it turns out, our tools have given students and teachers the power to "flip" the traditional classroom: Students can hear lectures at home and spend their time at school doing "homework"-that is, working on problems. It allows them to advance at their own pace, gaining real mastery, and it lets teachers spend more time giving one-to-one instruction.

America faces a crisis in higher learning. Too many college graduates are not prepared to think critically and creatively, speak and write cogently and clearly, solve problems, comprehend complex issues, accept responsibility and accountability, take the perspective of others, or meet the expectations of employers. 

Current practices of our educational institutions-and workplaces-are a mismatch between the age we live in and the institutions we have built over the last 100-plus years. The 20th century taught us that completing one task before starting another one was the route to success. Everything about 20th-century education, like the 20th-century workplace, has been designed to reinforce our attention to regular, systematic tasks that we take to completion. Attention to task is at the heart of industrial labor management, from the assembly line to the modern office, and of educational philosophy, from grade school to graduate school.