How many of you know the brainteaser: There are two doors, one leading to pain and one leading to happiness, guarded by two men – one lies and one tells the truth – and you have to ask the same question of each to figure out which door to open?
Last night, Ken and I had fun trying to figure out the answer as we played around on a new website we found, Khan Academy. http://www.khanacademy.org
Sal Khan, a young and VERY smart guy (MBA from Harvard Business School, a Masters in electrical engineering and computer science, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and a BS in mathematics ALL from MIT) uses nothing more than his Yahoo Doodle Pad and a videocamera to upload his explanations to Youtube, where he helps us understand everything from Algebra to Mortgage Backed Securities to History to Brainteasers.
Khan, an ex VC’er turned world educator, shows us the easiest ways to understand some of the toughest concepts. Smart isn’t only what you glean from a book, its also about how you explain what you know in a way that someone else can understand. This makes Khan a genius. And you can be one, too.
It started as a way to tutor his young cousin over the phone and grew into an open source project–allowing the Khan Academy to become the free classroom for the World, with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Its totally cool! There are over 1800+ videos on everything from Math (every level) to Science to Humanities to SAT Math and GMAT Test Prep.
Whether you have kids in school who could use a new way of hearing their math, science or history lesson or you are looking for a way to understand what the heck is going on in our world (i.e. why your 410k is down 40% and what your mortgage has to do with it), you have to at least check it out. There is no charge. His site runs on donations and one of his new benefactors is Bill Gates, who uses the site with his 11 year old son.
Simply click through and learn one new concept for today. You’ll be amazed at how you can fill your mind with something that leaves you the better for knowing it.
themindfullcreative.com 