I just found out about the Khan Academy in the news earlier this week and I think it’s one of the most inspirational projects I’ve seen in a while.

Salman Khan is a former hedge fund manager who single handedly created a whole library of YouTube videos to explain all manner of mathematical and scientific topics to kids in a way that’s easy to understand. He started doing them as a way to tutor his nieces and nephews. Now

…his 800-plus videos are viewed about 35,000 times a day, forming a virtual classroom that dwarfs any brick and mortar school he might have imagined. By using the reach of the Internet, he’s helped bring education to the information-hungry around the world who can’t afford private tutors or Kaplan prep courses.

I watched a few of them and I’m totally hooked! When I was in school I always learned just enough math to do well on tests, but then I’d promptly forget what I learned after a test was over. I wished I had someone like Salman Khan as a teacher…someone who made math relevant and interesting beyond a test and who spoke in plain english instead of abstractions.

He’s also got a series on economics and the financial system that I totally plan on watching since I know so pathetically little about how it all works.

There’s more about his project over here.

Filed under: education, inspiration, math, science, video, videos · 2 Comments

Not far from the truth. I just see this a minute a go. I think I should forward it to you. I copy and paste it.

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To wit, this list of special numbers…did you know there are

• Apocalyptic Numbers
• Evil Numbers
• Narcissistic Numbers
• Happy Numbers
• Sad Numbers
• Wasteful Numbers
• and most fascinating of all…Vampire Numbers (so called because they have fangs. fangs!)

Filed under: education, math, pi · 2 Comments

What Teachers Make by teacher and poet Taylor Mali. For Jess and Mitch:

via MeFi

Filed under: education, inspiration, video · 1 Comment

Did you know that Amit Gupta, who wrote the WP syntax highlighter that we use, also has a Hindi blog? Reading blogs is a fun way to practice Hindi.. I would start a Hindi blog too but typing in Devanagari is so hard!

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I’ve been listening to this ridiculous podcast called Learn Hindi From Bollywood Movies… I love it! The guy who does it, Arun Krishnan, does a great job. I LOLed several times!

John Lennon had once said that ‘all you need is love’. In this matter, love is indeed different from orange juice. For there is many a breakfast we have had without orange juice, but seldom have we been able to enjoy an egg that has not been fried under the steady gaze of a soulmate.

Filed under: education, hindi, india, podcasts · 1 Comment