Is Khan Inherently Crap?

@johnccarver @rmbyrne just cause something is mapped to the common core doesn't make it good. Increasingly ppl noting common core not so gr8
— Jerrid Kruse (@jerridkruse) March 4, 2012

@johnccarver @rmbyrne basically, stop spreading crap ;-). The crap being khan academy.
— Jerrid Kruse (@jerridkruse) March 4, 2012

These are two Tweets that Jerrid Kruse sent in reply to John Carver's reTweet of my post about Mastery Connect mapping Khan Academy videos to Common Core standards. Jerrid's comment reminded me of the similar sentiments shared by others in the educational technology community. I think that the majority of Khan's videos do serve the purpose of providing good, on demand tutorials. Yes, there are people who hold Khan up as the savior of education, he's not, and there are flaws with the flipped classroom model (assumption that students have access to the Internet at home being a major flaw with flipped classrooms), but does that mean that we shouldn't have students watch Khan videos? Please leave a comment below.

In the interest of telling more of the story, here are two follow-up Tweets from John and Jerrid.

@jerridkruse @rmbyrne Hey Sir,Kahn not the answer, just part of the discussion. It is a supplement, not a supplant
— John C. Carver (@johnccarver) March 4, 2012

@johnccarver @rmbyrne maybe in your & my eyes, but many (including khan) want to see it supplant - we need to be wary of hidden agendas, no?
— Jerrid Kruse (@jerridkruse) March 4, 2012

@jerridkruse correct, NOTHING will replace the human relationship in learning.
— John C. Carver (@johnccarver) March 4, 2012

@johnccarver amen, brother.
— Jerrid Kruse (@jerridkruse) March 4, 2012

For the record, I agree with John's comment, "Nothing will replace the human relationship in learning." I also think that John and Jerrid did a good job of keeping this conversation civil. Too often I see some of these conversations leave the realm of "polite" discourse and morph into something that isn't productive.