Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware, & YouTube
Does Khan Academy have content for my grade level and subject?
A quick look at the aesthetics of the online learning platform, Khan Academy, reveals that Khan Academy is set up as an online community where you can choose an avatar and a unique username to represent yourself, where you can keep tabs on your progress, visit with the community at large with questions, comments, and answers, and create projects. However, it does not appear very user friendly without a learning curve.
In a previous career, I taught Ag Science to secondary students. Kahn Academy does not have anything specifically set up for agriculture students however, because agriculture encompasses so many other disciplines it is easy to supplement your lesson with curriculum from Kahn Academy. For example, Kahn Academy offers curriculum in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Economics, Finance, and Entrepreneurship, all concepts that are covered in Agriculture Science curriculum.
Are the resources through Kahn Academy helpful to college students in some capacity, as primary or secondary sources for a course?
As an lecturer of Ag Sciences at the post secondary level; I find Kahn Academey provides resources that are just as useful for the same reasons as above. Kahn Academy can supplement post secondary education in agriculture science as a secondary source of curriculum.
What does MIT Open Courseware offer for my subject and level?
MIT Open Courseware is very similar to Kahn Academy in material offered for instructors of Agriculture Sciences, while agriculture is not a subject specifically offered in it's curriculum, there are many courses taught with curriculum to accompany the courses that complement an agriculture science curriculum in post secondary education, in addition to a large amount of information for each secondary resource. In addition to the subjects offered in the Kahn Academy that compliment ag science curriculum, MIT Open Courseware also offers Business, Energy, Engineering, Fine Arts, Social Science, society,Teaching and Education.
I find MIT Open Courseware much easier to navigate with many more resources to choose from. I like the platform's organization and aesthetics to be much more appealing than that of Kahn Academy, in addition to the ease of use. A user does not even need to set up an account to access the resources, for already over extended instructors this is much more beneficial than a non educator might understand.
I will personally be using MIT Open Courseware in my courses, starting this Fall.
What does YouTube offer for subject and level?
YouTube offers everything for everyone.
I use YouTube for almost every course I teach, sometimes to enhance the curriculum concepts, sometimes as an icebreaker at the beginning of a course, and even sometimes I use it to provide a bit of related or even un-related humor to the course.
In my personal time, with a personal social media account, I run across a myriad of YouTube videos relevant to courses that I teach.
And not only is YouTube a great resource to accompany your more traditional resources but YouTube can also serve to deliver your own material in an online course by videoing and posting your lectures and/or having students posting their own videoed assignments, or researching on their own; videos that would compliment a lesson and sharing it with the class.
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