Caroline Hu Flexer answers viewer questions about Khan Academy Kids | Homeroom with Sal

Hello! Looks like we are live. Uh, hello everyone! Sal here from Khan Academy. Welcome to the daily homeroom. For those of y'all that this is the first time that you're joining, this is really a way to connect and, uh, realize that we're all part of a global community here, especially in this time of school closures.

Obviously, Khan Academy, we're a not-for-profit with a mission for world-class education for anyone, anywhere. And well, before this crisis we're going through was happening, obviously our vision was how could we support teachers, how do we support students, how do we support parents so that any child and any teacher can support that child to go through the core subjects from pre-K, elementary school, middle school, high school, and the core of college, across subjects and grades.

I will remind folks that we are not-for-profit, and so we're able to do all of this with philanthropic support from folks like yourself. And so, we've always had those resources. But when we saw the school closures happening, we realized that it's our duty as a not-for-profit in the space that is free and accessible to do whatever else we can to make sure that you feel supported.

So above and beyond the many subjects and grades that we offer in math, English language arts, science, and the humanities on Khan Academy, we've been trying to do these live streams, which are just a way to connect and make announcements and focus on specific topics that are front-of-mind for folks during the school closures. And also, things like teacher webinars, parent webinars. We've also been experimenting even with live classrooms at a very large scale with students so that we can answer their questions on topics like algebra.

I do want to give a special thanks. You know, Khan Academy was already running a little bit of a deficit before all of this hit. For us to be able to do our mission and, uh, now that our server costs are going up 2x, maybe approaching 3x, we need as much support as possible. I want to thank folks like Bank of America, who's the first to step up, followed closely by AT&T, Google.org, and Novartis, but we need more help from corporations and from everyone. Whatever you can donate is great.

So I am very excited today about today's topic because it's actually a topic that many of you have been asking about. It's a topic that I desperately want to learn about as a father of a five-year-old who, in this time of social distancing, is, you know, not to pick on him, uh, maybe the most disruptive member of our household right now. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring on Caroline, who is actually the founder of Khan Academy Kids.

And maybe a good place to start, Caroline, is actually how did this start? What is Khan Academy Kids, even before the school closures happened? And then we can talk a little bit about what we're trying to do together to support folks even more.

Sure, so Khan Academy Kids, for those of you who don't know, is an educational program for kids ages two through seven. And it includes thousands of activities across a variety of subjects—math, reading, language, as well as social emotional development and executive function skills. So it's a comprehensive program for early learning for preschool through grade one, and it has a personalized learning path where we adapt the lessons for each child's skill level on specific topics.

It also includes a library that has hundreds of books, many of which are original books around our characters. And then we also have some partnerships with National Geographic, Super Simple, and Bellwether to deliver some of the other books and content. And as a reminder, this is all free, all non-commercial.

And I want to give Caroline and her husband Michael credit because they are the co-founders of what became Khan Academy Kids. I think it's important for folks to realize that, you know, similar to how Khan Academy started as a not-for-profit, it is really a family project—a way for me to help my cousin, and word got around that free tutoring was going on. It started being many everyone's cousins.

Maybe you started also as a family project. You and Michael actually created some of the very first apps back in 2008, 2009, 2010 on devices that showed the world that these could actually be things that young children can interact with. And then you all essentially donated your team, donated your org to this mission. So I don't think I'm overstating it that, you know, this isn't like some corporate effort. We're not trying to sell people. With you and Michael, it's a family project; you have other incredible team members. It's really an act of love that you're trying to do, that you started for your family, and then you're trying to do for many others.

That's right. We've been working in early childhood for 10 years on this, and so, um, yep, and your background shows that you have a much better background than I do, and I need to get some finger painting done. That might help.

Yeah, so let me start with a couple of questions. I think, as I mentioned, the early learning crowd, especially with parents working from home, preschools have been closed, kindergartens have been closed. They're some of the most difficult, I think, to, you know, say, "Hey, why don't you just work on this for a little bit?" What advice do you have for parents, generally speaking, and potentially leveraging Khan Academy Kids as well in this time of closures?

Yeah, I mean, I'd say, as a parent myself, and Sal, as a parent of young children as well, all I can say is, you know, give yourself a break and be kind to yourself to start with. Because all of us have been unexpectedly thrown into this situation. Already, as parents of young children, we were very busy being parents and juggling a million other things, and now we've been catapulted into many other roles of teacher, carer, magician, among other things.

And, um, there's just so much going on. I'd say be kind to yourself first and foremost—and also, we're in this, you know, for the long haul. And so, I think this is a new normal that we're all adjusting to. We are working hard on some things that we think might help. But I think the biggest advice would be to think of this as a balance. You're going to be balancing some learning time with your kids, as well as playtime and academic time and outside time. So it's really just about the balance.

And, um, it's not a sprint; we're just going to have to adjust to this new normal. And so a few things that we're doing that we think may help, in addition to the core Khan Academy Kids program, is just like Sal is doing these daily homerooms; we're launching today daily circle time, which is like circle time in preschools and kindergartens and first grades where the teachers have a chance to connect with the students.

So Sophie from my team and I will be leading these circle times, and they're a time for us to connect, read books, do learning activities, get the kids up to stretch, and do some imaginary play too. We're trying to keep some semblance of what's normal during these changing times, and I think we're just really acknowledging that, you know, these are difficult times for many families and children.

So the children may not know the specifics of what COVID-19 is, but they are going through change. Maybe their school is closed; maybe their parents are working at home, or their parents are just much busier and more concerned about different things. So we're trying to address those head-on, and our first episode is a special episode about how to talk to kids through these changing times.

And what we're doing is, instead of just explaining the specifics of the virus, which may not be age-appropriate, we are giving them three superpowers that they already have that they can use as tools in times of change. So things like being thankful, belly breathing, and being a helper. So, in addition to circle time, I think, yeah, for kids of all ages as well as parents, and so I think, you know, as parents watch with their kids, they can do it together. You want to do it together?

I love them already! I know, yeah. I have the belly, so I might as well use it to breathe.

So let me ask, there's a lot of great questions that are already pouring in, and I want to get to as many of them. But I'm going to start with a selfish question that I think a lot of folks are asking. You know, especially with younger ages, we're always sensitive to screen time, and by definition, Khan Academy Kids, it's on the screen. But now we're in this new normal, as you mentioned, where screens are in some ways our only lifeline to the outside world or socialization.

How are you thinking about— I know you all are consulting a lot of experts, child psychologists, researchers. What are they telling you? What do you know about appropriate use of screen time generally and screen time in the context of Khan Academy Kids?

Yeah, I think, as I was alluding to earlier, it's all about balance. So we definitely don't want the young kids just on the screen. So we need to balance a few minutes in the morning, up to 10 to 20 to 30 minutes on something like Khan Academy Kids that’s rich and educational and enriching, where you can see the kids interacting with the technology and singing and even getting up sometimes to sing along and stomp around.

But we need to balance that with outdoor time and playtime, family time, free time, as well as reading—reading real books. Or parents can also read books in our app in the library, and when they do it together, you know, it's a very different experience than a child just looking at technology. So again, just about balance.

And just out of curiosity, I mean, we've been seeing the traffic on our side on kind of the core Khan Academy or non-Khan Academy Kids up about two and a half-fold. What are you all seeing on downloads and information over the last two weeks?

Yeah, well, overall, since our launch in 2018, Khan Academy Kids has been downloaded over six million times and has had great usage. But this week is really an anomaly. We've seen our new users up by over 10 times our normal rates.

So, wow! You know, I'm very happy to be a resource that parents and teachers and families can draw upon.

Great, so let me get to some of the questions that I'm seeing. So, there's one question: "My child is on the autism spectrum. Do you have any tips for using the Khan Academy Kids app with children with autism? How can I make sure it's engaging and motivating for him?"

So we've heard from families with children on the spectrum, and children are all different. I think our app is designed to be engaging and easy to use for all children, so it's designed for pre-readers and designed to be intuitive for children to explore. And there's no, you know, one way to use it.

And I think with the core characters that we have in our app, they tend to really connect with the children. They all have different personalities so different children can latch onto different characters. And then we use a lot of music; so as Sal was saying, this is a homegrown effort—co-founder and husband plays the cello in the app, and we do a lot of the music in our app ourselves, and all of the illustrations and character books are all done in-house by our very talented animators and illustrators.

So, um, yeah, I think it is an app that, you know, pre-readers as well as children of different abilities can use in different ways.

I have to say, Caroline, whenever I come over to your house, I have a little bit of insecurity as a parent when I see your family, like, "Let's bring out our cellos and play together!" There's something of a role model for me as a parent. Personally, my wife does a much better job, but I have aspirations.

Let's see, we have other questions. So, this is from YouTube. Cree Henge wants to know, "How would you use Khan Academy Kids if there isn't a translation for their language yet?"

And I have some ideas there, but I'm curious what you think, Caroline.

Yeah, well, we've heard from families from all over the world that they're using it to learn English. That's one thing. But again, as I was saying, it's been designed for pre-readers. So children can play with the interactive activities, do the counting and the logic, as well as listen to the books that are read aloud in English.

Even if they don't know, then I think kids learn really quickly, so that's one way we've seen it being used.

Exactly, because it's literally at a level for when people are literally just learning language and numbers and motor skills and social emotional learning. That actually almost any child anywhere can interact with it. And in many parts of the world, it's actually a really useful skill to have some of that baseline English proficiency. But, you know, longer-term, we might be able to think about ways to localize.

All right, so other questions. So, see from Facebook, Andre Felipe says, "I was wondering if Connecticut has a course on how to teach online. Of course, everything is explained so well whether you're being very generous. Andre, and clearly because of COVID-19, I'm forced to teach online."

So I think I can handle that question. Um, we don't have any courses on that yet. My advice to you—and this goes back to when I was tutoring for my cousins, and that was really a blessing that I started with my cousins because it allows me not to put too much pressure on myself—is just get started.

There's many ways you can do it. You can use your cell phone, you had a whiteboard, you can find some, you know, you can go online and buy a camera, a phone holder stand that you can point downwards, and you can do lectures on paper. You obviously can also do what I do, which is digital. I use an art program; I use Sketchbook, and I can do screen capture using Camtasia, and I have a decent microphone.

This is, you know, something you can buy at your local electronics store. You could do it that way, but that's a technical setup. My advice on how to do it is just, you know, be yourself.

Sometimes when people get recorded, they can freeze up a little bit or get a little stressed out. Be yourself, laugh at yourself. Feel like you're, you know, these are your students you're talking to, feel like you're talking to them—feel like you're talking to your cousins.

And I think the more you just get started, get a lot of feedback from them, keep iterating on it, I think you're going to develop your own style. It'll be pretty cool.

See other questions from Facebook. Trixie Hanson says, "Can you guys do live tutoring on YouTube, Facebook for students if they need help only using their Khan Academy work?"

And then there's a second part: "Why can't my parents print a report card if all of my progress and assignment scores are online?"

So, uh, Trixie, we actually are exploring some of those things, uh, like a YouTube. We've actually been doing these webinars; we've been publicizing it on our social media and on the link on that daily schedule that we put out, which are schedules for students of different age groups, including the Khan Academy Kids crowd, to structure their days.

We've been saying we've been running some experiments and starting with algebra, where we've been working through algebra worked examples, but we're making them as interactive as possible where students can answer the questions, you know, answer surveys. We can see what they did, and then we can answer their questions.

So expect to see some more of that. We're trying to, as much as we can, and you know print a report card of progress in theory. They can, you know, we haven't built specific functions for, I guess you could say formal printable report cards, but the teachers' and parent dashboards have reports on if they are a student's coach, what the student has been working on, what they've gotten mastery in, what assignments they've completed.

So in theory, that could be printed out.

So from YouTube, Anusha Amith asks, "Can you use Khan Academy Kids on a computer?"

Caroline: Unfortunately not yet. Uh, it's more for mobile devices on iOS and Android as well as Chromebooks. But wait! With the circle time, you'll be able to see that on YouTube. We also are coming out with daily often activities where children can do math and reading offline, in printable, or using things around their house—so things like Mondays writing workshop, Wednesdays, and thoughtful Thursdays.

And just to add to what Caroline says, you know, this is all free, not for profit, so whether you're on Android or iOS, you can download this app. There's no shady upselling; this is literally free, philanthropically supported. So we need your help to keep Khan Academy Kids going, especially with the load we're seeing—10x of normal load.

We already had six million downloads before this, and now we're 10x of normal load, so we need your help. But this is all free; this is all non-commercial, so hopefully, it's accessible to you and your children, Anusha.

So from YouTube, we have AstroJayden saying, "Hey Sal, this is Jayden. I'm wondering if I can change up my schedule to fit my day. I'm in sixth grade, and there's no telling how each day will go."

And my answer to you, or response Astro, is absolutely! The whole goal of those schedules is to be a starting point, allow people to realize, okay, I got this. This is a reasonable way to handle it, but feel free to copy it, paste it, modify it so it meets your needs, so that it can meet your day.

And I think it sounds like you do want to have some type of a schedule, which does help structure your days, especially when we're all spending a lot of time at home, which I think is a really great thing. I think that's actually a great skill as a sixth grader that you're developing, just like that meta skill of, okay, how should I structure my day? How should I plan? How should I make sure I get everything done that I want to?

So good job, Astro!

Okay, another question, and this is from YouTube. LittleGummy34 asks, "Hi Sal, why are missions going down on Khan Academy?"

All right, that's a very good question that I'm sure many people are asking. Missions is actually, uh, so for those of you who don't know, historically, over the last 10 years, there have really been two ways to experience Khan Academy—really three ways. One is you do a web search on a concept, factoring quadratics, and then you go to the right part of Khan Academy and you could do it that way.

We've historically called that the library view. And then there's this thing called missions, where if you find the missions on, say algebra or other subjects, it will be kind of a guided practice and there are game mechanics and all these notions of mastery.

What we realized about four or five years ago is missions actually has a lot of efficacy research behind it, but we realized it was kind of unfortunate that there were these two worlds. Our ideal world is to do what a good tutor would do is that you come to us for help through a web search, and then we help you for your immediate needs.

And maybe you're trying to learn something for a test tomorrow or do your homework, but then the game mechanics of things like missions kind of suck you in, in a good way. And so what we started building about two years ago is what we call course mastery.

So now when you do a search and you fall into Khan Academy, you can get your immediate help, get some practice and feedback, but there's already mastery mechanics around it. And so the reason why we're going to—it’s fancy word is deprecate missions—which means over the next year or so, we're going to be taking it down is because the course mastery is being able to pick up the slack of what missions was doing before.

And so that's my simple answer, and then we are committed to continually improving that course mastery so not only does it do everything that missions did, we just launched things like mastery challenges on our course mastery, but we hope it goes there and beyond and has all of the benefits of our library view.

But that's an excellent question.

All right, so from YouTube, Daniel Marazida asks, "What is the difference between a mastery challenge and assignments? Are assignments just a focus?"

A mastery challenge is a mission master show—okay, so we're going deep into the experience. But these are good questions because I know there are a lot of folks, especially with the school closure, spending more time on Khan Academy. You're using it as the resource that you're really leaning on.

So a mastery—so there's, when you do skills (and I'll just say math, but we have mastery in other subjects as well), you can focus on that skill, and it might ask you to do five questions. If you get four right, it'll say you're familiar. If you get five out of five, it'll say you're fluent.

And then there's another level called mastery. The only way that you get mastery is if you're already fluent, and you get that question right in either a unit test (which is sampling all of the skills of the unit), a mastery challenge, or a course challenge.

And the reason why we do that is we feel that you only are truly mastering it when you know when to recognize to do that problem, and you're seeing it with other problems. You have to kind of remember maybe how to apply some of those concepts or skills.

Mastery challenges are things we just launched, and they always exist in missions, where not only do they allow you to up level these things that you are already proficient in, but they also are doing what's called spaced repetition.

So we know that you can learn something—we've all experienced it—but a month later, two months later, you might have forgotten it. And especially with a lot of these skills, it's really important to retain it over time.

There's a lot of learning science behind it, but mastery challenges, beyond being just an opportunity to up level the skills that you're already proficient in, it's also a chance to make sure that you still have mastered things from before.

So mastery challenges tend to be a little bit shorter, take a little less time. They're good ways to level up, and they're good ways to review. Unit tests are great ways if you're just trying to get mastery in that unit; you're trying to understand what your gaps are in that unit, and you're trying to level up.

Course challenges are great if you want to understand your understanding of the whole course, maybe figure out where your gaps are, and then zero in on those units that you might be having difficulty with. But this is all great feedback for us to just make all of this that much clearer.

Um, let's see other questions. We have a little bit more time. I'm seeing if they're—let me ask another Khan Academy Kids question for Caroline from YouTube. I'll go. Marble Racer says, "When was the app created?"

I'm assuming they're talking about the—we have two apps. We have the Khan Academy app and the Khan Academy Kids app. I'd love for you to know when was the Khan Academy Kids app created and how do you see it evolving?

Yeah, so we launched Khan Academy Kids in 2018, so it's been out for a little over a year, and it is rapidly evolving. We are working on more tools to help in this environment of remote learning, and so stay tuned in the next few weeks; we'll have some announcements about new things that we can use for remote learning.

Currently, it goes from preschool through grade one and will be aging up to grade two as well over time. And, you know, I can't overstate how powerful what Caroline, Michael, and their team have created. You know, you saw some videos of it, but it's somewhat magical because the videos kind of pause and then the kids are asked to manipulate what was actually in the video, as you know.

And I, I have, as I mentioned, a five-year-old, and he loves it! And there's also plenty of books in there, things that you can read alongside of your children. You know, I think it's—you’re seeing in some of these videos, this is kind of the best use case—the family gets together, does it together; it's a time to connect.

And we also know there are times in this, you know, where you're trying to get some work, and you want to say, what is the nutritious screen time for your child where you can feel confident they’re learning? Caroline's been doing some incredible work with researchers from places like Stanford to measure the efficacy, to constantly iterate on it.

So this isn't just pure edutainment where it's like entertainment that kind of looks kind of educational. This is real education that happens to be engaging and really entertaining, and I think they've done a really incredible job at that.

So let's see other questions—maybe time for one question. This is from YouTube. Roshan Rangdal asks, "My sister's weak in basic math. How do I help her?"

So depending on her age, one suggestion, if she's, you know, mid-elementary or a little older, late elementary, or middle school, ace, or even high school, I actually recommend going on Khan Academy and starting at the beginning—starting on early learning, which I think she'll be able to go through quite quickly, especially if she uses things like course challenges.

And then go to, uh, things—try to finish the arithmetic on Khan Academy, and then she could probably engage on her grade level, depending on what it is. But, you know, with school closures, the silver lining is there might be a little bit more time to really go all the way back and build those foundations.

I'm confident if your sister is listening, tell her that it's not that she's bad at math, or not capable, or that math is hard. It's just that she probably got some gaps in her background, and now things are making a little less sense. But if she goes back, fills in those gaps, not only will she find that math is fun and interesting, but she can be quite good at it.

So I think that's all of our time today. And time really does go by fast when you're having fun. I wanted to thank Caroline. We're going to post information about all of the amazing things that Caroline and her team are doing already, and the live events they're going to be holding over the weeks and maybe months to come depending on how long this closure situation lasts.

And I just want to remind everyone we are not-for-profit. Everything we're doing is free; it's not commercial. It's made possible through donations from folks like yourself, and we do genuinely need that help to stay afloat. I always tell people our budget is about the budget of a large high school, but we are trying to serve a decent chunk of humanity right now, especially through this school closure period.

Khan Academy is much more than just me and Caroline; it's over 200 folks. We have thousands of volunteers. We have to spend millions of dollars just on server hosting. You can imagine there's tens of millions of people who are depending on this every month right now.

So with that, everyone, you know, stay safe. Stay socially distanced; just remember we're all in this together, and it's a hard time, but there's something beautiful about this shared experience as well. And I really love being connected to all of y'all in this way. Now I, and our team, will see you tomorrow!