I've been fortunate enough to see educators and entrepreneurs come together at EdCamps across the east coast - Baltimore, New York City, New Jersey, Philly, and Rhode Island. As a former educator turned EdTech-er, never have I experienced more love and kindheartedness than in Rhode Island.

My experience in one particular session at EdCamp RI effectively sums up all that is going on in the EdTech scene there.

The "EdTech in Rhode Island" room was packed full of educators, administrators and EdTech founders - we had to squeeze in additional chairs and there were still people sitting on the ground. Shawn kicked it off with short introductions and dove right in - How do we turn Rhode Island into THE place where educators and EdTech companies can come together to create amazing tools for teachers, parents, and students? In the hour that followed, there was no BS, no frills, no advertisements, no ulterior motives - just straight up honesty, passion, and drive to turn Rhode Island into EdTech central. It was infectious.

After EdCamp, the enthusiasm continued. For Portfoliyo, it came in the form of principals like Don Miller asking me to come show Portfoliyo to his teachers, and teachers like Vanessa Waggenheim (below) using Portfoliyo and sharing valuable feedback. Can you believe it? Things actually happened after the meeting.

I am loving Portfoliyo! A parent who I had noworking numbers for signed up and now I can contact them! @shawncrubin @harshoninternet
— Vanessa Waggenheim (@wagsedtech) December 4, 2012

A couple weeks later, Shawn organized the RI EdTech Meetup where there were more educators than entrepreneurs present. Crazy. An EdTech meet up with educators? Who would have ever thought? And again, the discussions didn't stop once everyone walked out the door - they continued. One principal connected me with another, who connected me with another, and in a matter of days, teachers all around town began using Portfoliyo, with Shea High School and Lillian Feinstein at Sackett Street Elementary leading the way.

From my experience, Rhode Island educators have their hearts in the right place. They help each other out, and don't care who gets credit - as long as it means more Rhode Island students are succeeding.

They're awesome, and any EdTech company looking for some love from teachers shouldn't underestimate this seemingly tiny state.

1. Have students practice whichever exercises you want them to - or all.
2. Interpret the data provided by KA.
3. Re-teach specific topics to specific students through targeted intervention.
4. Repeat.

1. Practice

Here are just some of the 300+ excellent exercises created by the dev team. Just click on "Practice" at the top right to access them.

Telling Time

Decimals

Fractions

Divisibility Intuition

Scientific Notation Intuition

2. Interpret Data

After having students practice these exercises look at all the data you can access:

3. Targeted Intervention

Use the data to:

• Teach a specific topic to a small group
• Have a student proficient in a topic teach someone who is struggling
• Re-teach a topic to the whole class

Bottom line: Don't worry about the videos that get all the hot press and criticism, worry about the exercises. This is how kids feel about videos anyway.

Shoutout to Ben Eater, Ben Kamens, many other Bens, the rest of the dev team, and the interns for choosing to use their brains to create exercises instead of figuring out how to get more people to click on ads. 

Currently, Khan Academy is a very singleplayer experience. Sure students get help from their friends, but in the end, they're earning proficiencies, badges, leaves, and points for themselves. Thus, it's singleplayer. If Khan Academy is going to be super popular with students that are kids, it needs to be a multiplayer experience. Why? Think about what's engaging to kids--World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Draw Something (See Ryan Kim's article), and sports like basketball and soccer. They all have one gamified experience in common: Intra-team cooperation and inter-team competition. They're truly multiplayer!

So I decided to turn Khan Academy into a truly multiplayer game and am getting other teachers to do the same. Why? Because I want to bring what happens in true multiplayer games...

1. Positive reinforcement from teammates
2. Self-motivation to help the team succeed
3. Organic and genuine leadership roles

...into my classroom.

How I'm Doing It

Students choose to be in teams of 2-4 and give themselves a name. Their team gets a point if and only if everyone in their team becomes proficient in a specific exercise. This drives intra-team cooperation, which drives more proficiencies, and helps students who are already proficient learn the material better by teaching their teammates.

Teams also get a point if say, Student1 in the team teaches Student2 how to do an exercise AND Student2 then becomes independently proficient in the exercise. I display two leaderboards, one for group proficiencies, and one for teams who cooperate the most (do the most teaching).

The rules: 1) You can't do an exercise for a teammate, and 2) You can't lie about passing an exercise. I explained that if anyone breaks one of these rules, the game becomes really boring, and also had the students put their hand on their heart, and verbally promise to follow the rules.

How It's Going

Students are much more more cooperative, they're gaining more proficiencies, and they're getting better at effectively teaching their peers.

How You Can Do It

You don't have to have computers in your classroom to do it. E-mail or call me. I'll help you figure it out.

We hear Sal and team say this all the time: "The time in class needs is freed up to do project based learning." The higher-on-blooms type level of learning -- creating. Many educators would be thrilled to be able to do this in their classroom. Projects all day every day? Sign me up! Here's what it would, and should look like in order to achieve that goal.

At school: Students working on projects, keeping an online portfolio of projects, like adults do by blogging. Ex. Sahil, Adi, Jesse, Marc, and many others. Edit: Just found this: Make HTML5 websites with wix!

At home: Students working through Khan exercises.

So, what's the problem Harsh?

When using Khan Academy, students first prefer to learn from each other, then the hints, and lastly, Sal through his videos. However, if students are to work on KA at home, they don't have the number one resource they use to learn at their disposal--each other. Khan Academy isn't social or multiplayer. There's no way for KA students to connect to their real-life classmates, or even other students on KA. (Besides the Q&A below videos, which is a small step towards social).

The solution?

Make KA social, or multiplayer. Or create a webapp that allows students in the same class/school/region/country/world the ability to interact live with each other after-school, when they're struggling with school-work independently.

If you've spend some time using Khan Academy in your classroom, you've likely realized that students would rather click through the hints, ask each other, or ask you about solving an exercises rather than watch a video on it. There's even a fancy study from "Blend My Learning" that experienced the same thing.

"We were surprised to find that students preferred to teach themselves or each other through the practice problems and hints rather than watching the Khan videos." (Page 4)

KA devs, do you have data on students clicking for a video vs. students clicking on hints that shows this as well by chance? Just curious.

From the Student's Perspective

Student starts the exercise. "Hmm, I think I know how to do this". Inputs answer. Sad face. "Aw man, then how the heck do you do it?". Student faced with a decision:

1) Should I watch a 5-10 min. video where Sal MIGHT go through this exact problem?

2) Should I click through the hints and see all the work.

3) Should I ask my friend sitting right next to me.  

As with every human being, the student will take the path of least resistance (time). In almost every case, students choose 2 or 3, THEN 1. So really, the hints and other students are teaching students more often than Sal. Uh oh. Let's hope every student is an excellent teacher.

From the Teacher's Perspective

A well planned math unit starts with an assessment. Then you plan what and how you teach the concepts. However, in Khan Academy, all of the assessments (exercises) were developed AFTER all of the teaching materials (videos). Naturally, this means the videos aren't always directly aligned to the exercises. That's why students don't wach the videos. And because they're out to make our lives as difficult as possible. 

What Should We Do About It?

Make example videos for all of the exercises. (I'm workin' on it). Directly based on the exercise. Much like the following video. The teacher can take care of the conceptual understanding in-class (through hands-on examples, models, PBL, etc.)

I'd love to hear your thoughts/comments.  Have you experienced the same in your classroom?

• Computers for all students
  • Completely replace your curriculum (Mr. D's Khan Academy - He did it this way in 2010-2011)
    • Class Time
      • Students: Working on KA during class, have the freedom to ask each other for help, refer to other on-line resources, ask teacher, etc. This empowers students and fosters a learning mentality where students take charge of their own learning. 
      • Teacher: Pull targeted small groups based on KA teacher dashboard by identifying struggling students. You can also pull groups based on any other criteria you wish. This basically enables you to do small group instruction all day, every day. 
    • Homework
      • Assign an amount of time students spend on KA
      • For small groups, assign specific videos and exercises, either for enrichment or remediation.
    • Grades
      • Determine which exercises must be completed for your grade-level to earn an A, B, C, or D. This is like pseudo-standards based grading. Teacher is fully responsible for determining which exercises qualify for which grade-level. This requires you to experience all of the exercises like a student would to identify what students need to know for each exercise (a time-consuming process, but very meaningful).
      • Share what you decide to be the required exercises with your students. This is a very empowering document, simliar to this.
  • Supplement Curriculum
    • Class Time
      • Students: A group of them work on KA for part of the time, while another group is progressing through curriculum with your instruction.
      • Teacher: Teaching the standard curriculum to ½ of the students while ½ of them are on KA, then switching groups half-way through class.
    • Homework
      • Standard homework based on curriculum, KA not assigned as homework, but encouraged.
    • Grades
      • Standard grading policy for curriculum based on tests and quizzes.
      • Make KA worth 50% of the entire grade while curriculum is worth 50%, or vary the %ages based on your specific implementation.
• Computers for some students
  • This is likely the most common use of KA. You can set up your classroom in to centers/stations. Example:
    • 3 centers
      • Khan Academy
      • Instruction with Teacher
      • On-going Projects
    • 4 centers
      • Khan Academy
      • Instruction with Teacher
      • Math game center
      • Word-Problem, explain your response center

I would love to hear your ideas on using KA in the classroom. How have you been using it in your classroom?

The Jeffersons. Best. Show. Ever.

I've moved form being a 5th grade teacher to an 8th grade Math/Science teacher! School started August 1st with students, and I'm really excited to use KA in my classroom from the beginning of the year. I have not began to use it yet due to a lack of computers but am super interested to see how it will play out with my more mature, independent, and self-monitoring students. 

Over the (short) summer, I've been volunteering my time for KA by writing word problems in an effort to increase the number of quality word problem exercise modules. Some of the existing modules don't scaffold practice and assessment effectively, so I'm excited to contribute a set of word problems that do. 

For example, this is the first arithmetic word problem students on KA would encounter:

Ishaan is putting jelly beans into piles. If he puts 8 jelly beans in each pile he will make 5 piles and have 4 jelly beans left over. If he instead puts 2 jelly beans in each pile, how many piles of jelly beans can he make?

Students need practice solving word problems with just addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division before they can tackle this one. I'm excited for students to practice the plethora of word problems coming to the modules. Examples include the following.

(Multiplication Word Problem) A specific book costs $18.  That is 2 times more than a DVD.  How much does a DVD cost? 

(Division Word Problem) Charles rode his bike for a total of 240 kilometers in the past 8 days. He rode the same distance every day. How many kilometers did Charles bike each day?

(Addition Word Problem) On a vacation your family travels 26 miles on the first day, 34 miles on the second day, and 22 miles on the third day.  How many total miles did they travel?

(Subtraction Word Problem) There are 30 employees working in an office building. 5 of them left to go to a meeting. How many employees are left in the building?

I analyzed my 5th grade students' end of year NWEA data and compared it with their Khan Academy Energy Points. Students who were in the top 1/3 of the class for Energy Points grew, on average, a whopping 2.5 years during this past school year. Those in the bottom 1/3 for Energy Points still grew, but only 0.7 years. The below graph shows this striking relationship between Khan Academy activity (in terms of Energy Points earned) and student growth.

Student growth calculated from Spring 2010 - Spring 2011 NWEA data. n = 63

Please question the methodology and validity of this data as you please. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts and plan on building this post based on the discussion via comments/emails. 

0-7 Computers

• Assign KA modules as homework for struggling or high-achieving students.
  • Intervene during class or before and after school in small-groups as necessary.

• Create a KA competition (individual or team-based)
  • Introduce KA to students during school
  • Track exercise proficiency, energy points, time spent on site on a weekly or bi-weekly basis for each individual or team
  • Reward top performers in each category

1:3 or 1:4 Laptop:Student (~ 8-15 computers)

• Implement math centers with 3 or 4 rotating centers
  • Center 1: KA
  • Center 2: Real-life word problem investigation
  • Center 3: New material with teacher
  • Center 4: On-going PBL project

1:2 Laptop:Student (~ 16 computers)

• Divide class into 2 sections
  • Section 1: Khan Academy
  • Section 2
    • PBL projects
    • Direct instruction of traditional curriculum
    • Standards-based instruction through modified curriculum

1:1 Laptop:Student

• Use all of class for KA
  • Joe Donahue: 7th and 8th grade
  • Intervene during class when necessary
  • Convert KA proficiency into class grade
  • LASD Pilot: 5th and 7th grade 

These ideas build on each other, and are not independent of each other. For example, you can still create a KA competition in a 1:1 laptop:student classroom. This list will be updated as I find more classrooms documenting their implementation. If you have more ideas, please let me know via comment or e-mail.

KA forces students to "review" old topics they have not encountered recently. This mechanism rocks. My students have been working on KA for long enough to finally get to the point where they must review old topics, and are realizing they forgot how to do them. They become embarrased at first, then quickly realize that the review mechanism is for their own good, and get right back to work.