The development of online education provides a more economic and convenient educational option for numerous children and adults all over America. Khan Academy is one of the hall-of-fame level competitors in the industry due to its lucid lecture and interactive interface that keep users engaged in exploring knowledge.

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Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization created in 2006 by educator Salmar Khan to provide “a free, world-class education for everyone.” At the moment, Khan Academy provides over 6,000 video lectures that cover subjects ranging from math and science to humanity and the arts. The program also provides free test prep courses for students preparing for SAT, MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), CAHSEE (California High School Exit Examination) and so on.

Lectures on Khan Academy are given based on Yahoo!’s Doodle notepad, which simulates the way teachers write down key information on the whiteboard in real class rooms.

While users are learning, Khan Academy’s personalized learning engine helps them to track their progress on a certain subject or topic so that the users can be aware of how much they have done and how far they still have to go. At the end of each topic, Khan Academy also offers quizzes related to the material in the lecture so that users can practice to apply the knowledge they have learned. Since June, 2014, the website has provided more than 100,000 practice exercises.

Besides watching videos and solving problems, Khan Academy also includes a discussion platform that allows users to work on the material together.

Karen Walters, science teacher on campus, uses Khan Academy as a source of supporting material, alongside two other online education programs: Crash Course and Bozeman Science.

One of the major problems online education providers have is their inability to provide the users with motivation or supervision that keep them learning. However, Khan Academy provides two ways to solve that problem.

Through generating motivation for users to learn, the system of awarding badges increases the gamification of education and competitiveness between each user. Through introducing supervision, Khan Academy allows parents and teachers to access the learner’s progress.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @MojunPan.

For more Featured Apps, read the Oct. 13 article, Featured App: Duolingo.