The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and Google have donated millions to Khan Academy to help see where this can go.
The idea of flip flops comes from moving the explanation of the problem to the homework phase of instruction and the practice to the in-school phase effectively flipping the current model on its head. The driver of all this of course is the technology and its creative application. In this case, user developed video hosted on something like Vimeo or YouTube.
Technology advances have led to several flip flops over the years. Early CBT systems and their limited graphic and branching capabilities resulted in primarily information dumps. The basic stuff was put in CBT lessons so the instructor could liven things up when the class met in person. That flipped when more sophisticated authoring tools like Authorware and Toolbook allowed animations and other complex interactions to bring systems alive in a CBT lesson. Sophisticated branching and programming allowed for multiple paths through the material based on learner responses and so on. With this flip the teacher became the one who introduced the topic and conducted reviews and further explanations while the CBT did much of the heavy lifting.This all flipped back with the use of the web as a delivery mechanism. Early web tools didn't allow for the rich media we had learned how to embed in our CBTs distributed via CD-ROM or via a network. Broad access via the web, however, won the day and web-based training became the basic stuff once again with instructors providing the richness. As web tools grows more powerful and bandwidth grows more plentiful, the march to more sophisticated web-delivered learning continues to the place where we now can flip back to the place where instructors can allow web-based resources to do much of the lifting.
Kahn's use of simple user-developed videos and the readily available hosting services like YouTube further allow this flip to occur. The basics are available 24X7. They can be reviewed, backed up, stopped and started at will. As the Wired article states, the teacher can then be the tutor to many. He or she can deal with each learner form where they are as opposed to trying to herd cats through the topic.Video and bandwidth growth allow for this next opportunity to flip. It will be interesting to see which schools and companies are able to gain the advantage by flipping things around.
