Jamie Alexandre, one of our interns from last summer, has launched a fantastic project: Khan Academy Lite. His goal is to bring Khan Academy to the 65% of the world that doesn’t have internet access.

Visit the site at:

http://kalite.adhocsync.com/

Read more about Jamie’s mission to make universal education universal:

http://jamiealexandre.com/blog/2012/12/12/ka-lite-offline-khan-academy/

After meeting with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and discussing the state’s pension obligations, Sal has created two videos about the issue.

The first looks at how pensions differ from 401(k)s and IRAs. The second looks at how unfunded pensions will create future budget challenges for almost every state, especially Illinois.

For more about the Illinois pension squeeze, visit http://www.facebook.com/ThisisMyIllinois and http://thisismyillinois.com/.

Pension obligations
Illinois pension obligations

Sal picked three submissions to our first programming challenge and made companion videos for them.

Congratulations to our challenge champs: Peter Collingridge, tetef, and Justin Helps!

Thanks to everyone who spun off a program for the challenge!

Peter Collingridge
View Peter’s simulation at http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/challenge-unbiased-estimate-of-population-variance/1169428428

tetef
View tetef’s simulation at http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/will-it-converge-towards-1/1167579097

Justin Helps
View Justin’s simulation at http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/unbiased-variance-visualization/1167453164

Sal has a new programming challenge — create a simulation that demonstrates how when gravity pulls together a cloud of particles, the matter accretes into a rotating disk like our solar system or galaxy.

Vist the challenge here to spin off a copy of the base program and start working!

http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/challenge-modeling-accretion-disks/1176457365

Khan Academy volunteer Peter Collingridge has created a computer science simulation that demonstrates what happens when you play “Let’s Make a Deal” with Monty Hall and have to choose what’s behind door number one, two, or three.

Watch the simulation here:

Monty Hall Simulation

Peter’s simulation illustrates Sal’s lesson that it makes sense to change your initial pick after Monty reveals to you that one of doors you didn’t pick has a goat behind it instead of a car. 

Monty Hall Problem