They’re using technology as an integral part of their instruction and personalizing instruction for a classroom of students with diverse learning needs.Įqually important, they’re never using “technology for technology’s sake.” I, like many teachers, share a deep belief that we should decide how to best meet the needs of students before turning to technology. We’re working with teachers across the country now. I recognize today that they were important forerunners of the wave to come.įast forward to 2019. I was humbled by these early teachers’ feedback and the learnings they shared. At the same time, we knew that technology was nowhere near a silver bullet.

I think we all knew, even back then, that technology could one day deliver on the long-held dream of helping teachers to differentiate instruction for every student. Most were near our offices in Silicon Valley so that we could learn from them firsthand. Some of the teachers taught in traditionally high-performing suburban schools (like the Los Altos School District in Los Altos, Calif.) and others worked in underserved communities where many of their students would be the first in their families to go to college (for example, at Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto and Oakland Unity High School in Oakland, Calif.).

They were the outliers, those willing to open up their classrooms to try new things. Teachers are the unwavering center of schooling and we should continue to learn from them every day.Īt the beginning of the decade, we worked with a handful of early adopters. They inform my day-to-day work as well as the important learnings I’ll take forward for years to come. I made three assumptions back in 2010 that still hold sway today.Īlthough I didn’t know it a decade ago, I now understand these assumptions are enduring.

In 2008, Sal Khan founded Khan Academy, the online education nonprofit where is now CEO, and in 2014 he founded the Khan Lab School.Ī lot has changed over the last decade, but it’s interesting to look at things that haven’t changed too. This op-ed is part of a series of reflections on the past decade in education technology.

Salman khan academy