Khan Academy is a wonderful internet resource for students in the USA. But how do we bring it to the teeming millions of the world that do not have access to the Internet? This is the genesis of an experiment that we have started in over a handful places in India and Sri Lanka -- we call it KAWI.
What is interesting is that the KAWI system has not only the usual KA videos but also it has a built in system to generate exercises/tests for each individual student and keep track of their progress through the concepts/areas (however, only for the Math courses). A teacher can also serve as a mentor instead of the traditionally (and faulty) conduit for delivery of content only! This work also ties nicely with my earlier experiments with "Computing for the Masses (CfM)", because this system can work on an individual computer or locally connected computers (the latter being what I had created as CfM).
It also has a bunch of college/+2-level materials including specialized training for IIT-Entrace exams, etc..
We have just started several small experiments in Bhubaneswar, Brahmapur, Cuttack, Bolangir and Rourkela in Odisha, Coimbatore in Tamilanadu, and one for Sri Lanka. We hope to learn from field reports.
Additional remarks:
- The current videos and instruction pages are all in English. How and what to translate or voice-over in Odia vernacular. I met with a couple young chaps near Brahmapur who have been developing software in Odia and some for Odia-medium schools. Would like to watch and mentor..
- What and how to augment in areas/topics that the base set does not include. Need people with Google appengine/python skills.
- How to deploy and scale up
- How to collaborate with Khan Academy for future enhancements and functionality.