HOW KHAN ACADEMY IS GOING GLOBAL, BY USING VOLUNTEERS TO TRANSLATE ITS 2,600 15-MIN VIDEOS INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Inside the online education juggernaut's mission to make their free lessons available in more than a dozen languages.

Khan Academy, one of the world's most popular educational sites, has a problem. People around the world want to learn online. However, the majority of world Internet users aren't fluent English speakers. For Khan Academy, the answer is obvious: Translate content, using the Internet as its translators. Quickly.

Many American high school and college student--as well as many adult, non-students--are already familiar with Khan Academy. The site, founded by former hedge fund analyst Salman Khan, hosts thousands of free, high-quality educational videos. Though most of the site's content focuses on mathematics, hard sciences, and computing, recent videos have begun covering the liberal arts as well.

Salman Khan (Click Image To Enlarge)

The donation-funded non-profit has spent the past few years systematically porting their lectures and tests into over 16 foreign languages. Volunteer workers crowdsourced from the Internet work closely with Khan Academy supervisors to create subtitles for lectures, along with voiceovers for select videos.

According to Khan Academy Dean of Translations Bilal Musharraf (Yes, that's his official title; Musharraf is the son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf), the organization crowdsources translators through Universal Subtitles' Amara platform, which recruits volunteers worldwide to write foreign language and closed-caption translations. Other Universal Subtitles clients include TED and PBS.

 

Translated content availability for Khan Academy varies wildly from language to language. Estonian is the most frequently subtitled language, with over 500 videos available, followed by Polish and Spanish. Dubbed content is available in 16 languages including Bangla, Hebrew, Malayalam, and Swahili. Musharraf tells Fast Company that each language has an official "Language Advocate" whose job is to review translations for accuracy and fluency. Language Advocates review both subtitles for Khan Academy videos and audio dubs.

Creating subtitled Khan Academy videos doesn't just boost the website's profile in non-Anglophone markets. Subtitles also help Khan Academy work SEO magic and lure in new viewers via Google and other search engines. The not-so-dirty secret is that video transcripts are fully searchable and can help make Khan Academy's content easier to discover.

While any Khan Academy user can subtitle videos, dubbing requires a stricter approval process. Potential voice-over volunteers undergo strict vetting by the non-profit; Khan places great importance on hand-holding voiceover artists and close supervision to guarantee accuracy and a consistent tone. In most cases, Khan Academy tries to use one voiceover person for each foreign language. Translators are expected to contribute a significant time investment; Khan Academy's Bangla project, for instance, requires at least 20 hours a week of volunteering.

Khan Academy's subtitle project began at the end of 2010 and is ongoing. Current language priorities, according to Musharraf, are Spanish, Portuguese, and Bengali. In the longer term, Khan Academy also plans to add original foreign language content--lectures and chats conducted from start to finish in non-English languages with no translation involved. Volunteers for translation are still being accepted.

Khan Academy Highlights:

• 2,600+ learning videos in its library. 
• At the end of December 2011, Khan Academy saw 4 million unique users. That’s up from 1 million in the same period in 2010, and up from 3.5 million in October. 
• The Khan Academy team is currently made up of 22 people, and they’re hiring ~1 more per month. 
• “I’d say that 90% [of the videos are shot] in 1 take. 99% are 2 takes.” 
• “I will definitely do much more advanced mathematics in the next year than what we have now.” (This resulted in Michael Nielson, leading quantum computing expert and author of the standard text on the subject, to offer his assistance right in the thread)
• Foundation grants received todate:
  • Bill and Mellinda Gates Foundation in July 2011 - $1.5 million
  • Google in July 2011 - $2 million
  • The O'Sullivan Foundation in November 2011 - $5 million

COMMENTARY:   I've been blogging about the Khan Academy since August 2010 when I first learned of the bold effort by former hedge fund analyst Salman Khan, to produce 15 minute videos to teach math and science to school kids.  

In the old days, Salman Khan churned out video teaching lessons from a converted walk-in closet in his Silicon Valley home (Click Image To Enlarge)

Thanks to the benevolence of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been able to raise sufficient capital to hire a CEO and sufficient staff to expand Khan Academy worlwide.  

 

Here's Salman Khan making an appearance at the Good Experience Live conference back on May 14, 2010.

 

On March 18, 2012, Khan Academy founder Salman Khan was interviewed by Sanjay Gupta for CBS' "60 Minutes" television program. It was an incredible interview showing Khan at work putting together his famous teaching videos. 

In March 2011, Salman Khan spoke at TED 2011.  Here's the video.

In a blog post dated March 20, 2012, I profiled Khan Academy's new mobile app for the  iPhone and iPad.  You can download the new Khan Academy iPad app here

The language barrier was going to become an issue sooner, rather than later, and I am glad the Khan is addressing that issue.  It will be a monumental task to translate all those videos into non-English languages. 

Courtesy of an article dated June 14, 2012 appearing in Fast Company

Comments

[Devana Gustin]

Thank you for this thoughtful post, so full of ideas.. it is helpful & your post motivated me..thank

[florida seo]

Hopefully, the practice workouts are being converted as well.

[Joe Wagner]

Hopefully, the practice exercises are being translated as well.