Tablets are a much more useable form factor in classrooms, etc.
Hopefully the iPad is just a kickoff point. One of my philosophies is that at least some part of your job should give you joy, and out of that great things can happen. Maybe iPad development is just something he wants to do for the joy of it.
NB: I know that John's not a one man army, and I'm not trying to lay this all on his shoulders. I'm just thinking out loud on HN.
Most of this is definitely out of the reach of the people who actually need it. $500 is a lot of money for people in my country. Most may be earning only 1/5th of that in the whole month. Average salary of a teacher in India a around $150 a month. Which is around $5 a day average.
How do you expect mass technology adaption with these sort of expenses?
Anyway, $499, which isn't that much, is today's price. iPads will drop in price and you'll get them used. At some point along will come great Android tablets for $299 (and probably iPads). Gotta start somewhere. Tablets are the next big thing. Soon they'll be a billion of them.
It's going to be a challenge to figure out the right UI idioms for the project, less so getting it working on a bunch of platforms giving the technology stack (open web technologies). Right now that's my biggest concern. Once we figure out how the interactions should work then the table/mobile world is our oyster.
Anyway, its great to see good people choosing a career in education!
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348476 [2] https://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/khan-academy-and-...
In a related question, do you use OpenDNS or any other access controls?
It is very hard to leave/scale-back unfinished business or commitments but it is a very important step before starting something new and big. I know many creative people who have tons of projects and commitments that they can't bring themselves to leave and as a result, they never have enough time to concentrate fully on their next big things. I highly commend John for making the tough decision of leaving Mozilla and lots of personal projects so that he could do something big.
Just feel like without this comment, your comment might not stand out to many.
In addition, I agree that it will make a great impact in the future. However isn't labeling it as "THE future" is going a little too far for now anyway? I would like to see a study on the type of person this type of study works for. If I'm not mistaken, it's not everyone?
EDIT: And he's a year younger! Damn you, jeresig!
With the recent startup boom, its sad to see some great talent spend time building little features or apps; just wish they could use their amazing talents to solve some really large problems..
Getting the chance to work on such a project makes money and career fade far into the background. All the Good this project is doing for the world makes it worth it. And all without the need to charge for the service or display ads.
Congrats John on this excellent choice for a chance to make a change.
I'm sure there are many great minds in here who would love to join John and the rest of the KA team
I am really looking forward to you building software full time. It is going to be great for jQuery!
Congrats!
In the talk, he mentions that they're doing a pilot program with the Los Altos school district[2] as well, which I'm sure wasn't for free since it involved custom development.
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rein... [2] http://lasdandkhanacademy.edublogs.org/about/
The site is currently quite hard to navigate around or search. Now that even talents like John have started to join the academy, I'm pretty sure, the site will definitely provide a better experience. Good for Khan, the academy and the education system
