Salman Khan, renowned voice from the amazing library of 1,400+ online videos posted at the Khan Academy, speaks at GEL 2010. His talk focuses on how his accidental approach towards teaching online has struck a chord with students. While teachers are quick to say that classroom instructors can’t be substituted for by online videos, Sal wonders if that is really true. Among the many reasons discussed, perhaps the one that goes unsaid most often in classrooms is the intimidation factor. Peer pressure, eagerness to impress, and desire not waste others’ time can inhibit students from taking advantage of the benefits offered by personal attention. Several other factors Sal mentions that have led to success include him not appearing in the videos, keeping the video durations to 10 minutes, and the ability for students to pause, rewind, and jump around to topics in any order they desire.

Kathy Sierra, famous for curating the website Creating Passionate Users, talks at Business of Software 2009. In the past companies have been able to out-spend each other to gain new customers. In today’s social media culture, Kathy is seeking to reveal a more algorithmic approach for gaining product adoption (‘Step 2: magic happens’ isn’t appealing to her). To do so, Kathy says to stop focusing on selling users upgrades and features, but rather focus on making users better in the overarching area your products exist within. Ultimately it is about getting users to say “I’m Awesome”. It is at that point, users will upgrade, and non-users will desire to be like the ‘Awesome Users’ and sell themselves on purchasing the product.

Chris Rogers, from the Tufts Center for Engineering Educational and Outreach speaks about the importance of teaching youth about Math, Science, and Engineering. Chris has pioneered many teaching program through the use of LEGOs and helped develop ROBOLAB, a LEGO teaching kit.  With many eaxmples and antidotes, Chris presents a compelling case for the importance and effectiveness of the teaching methods.