Neuroanthropology: Salman Khan talks at Web 2.0

Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy and online, open everything education revolutionary, talks about the reach of his online math and science resources.  Thanks to Erin Taylor of the University of Sydney for passing this my way.  If you haven’t watched, and you’re interested in the future of education, you probably should get a cup of coffee and prepare to have your mind blown (as Khan puts it, they accomplished all that he talks about with less than Harvard’s annual landscaping budget). All I can say in response is, fellow anthropologists, where’s our Khan Academy?  I may catch flack — ‘you can’t teach anthro this way,’ or ‘we don’t need more online education’ — but I can’t help but think that we should be doing this, too. Update: Erin reminded me that I should have posted a link to her excellent blog on economic anthropology, material culture and her ongoing research in the Caribbean. She explains her own research: My research interests focus on material culture, financial practices and development in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais at the Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. My project is called Haitian Difference: Religion and the Social-Material Making of Identity, and I will be using a material culture framework to examine how religion fits with a range of other cultural and economic indicators to affect the experiences of Haitians travelling between their home country and the Dominican Republic.