Week 10: Free Packaged Learning

For this mini project, I explored Khan Academy and Duolingo. I had never used either platform before, so it was super fun to play around with them and I learned more than I expected to. I started with Khan Academy and set up an account as a college student, and then I browsed through some different courses that caught my attention. After looking into a few AI and tech related courses, I ended up focusing on a stats course - "statistics and probability". I decided on doing the first lesson, called "identifying individuals, variables and categorical variables in a data set". First, I watched a youtube video - it was shorter than I expected but packed with helpful info that refreshed my memory from the last time I took stats...and then I took a quiz with several questions and ended up getting all the answers right. It felt like a very effective yet simple way to study - the explanations made a lot of sense and the quiz questions were diverse enough to give me a full picture of how the concepts worked. I think this would be extremely beneficial alongside any curriculum, as it mirrors the concepts learned but explains it in a way that I bet would oftentimes be a lot easier to grasp than textbook materials. 

Then, I switched over to Duolingo and made an account to start learning Spanish. I decided to begin with the very first lesson so I could get a feel for how the platform introduces a new language, even though I'm familiar with basic Spanish already. Right away I noticed how interactive everything was - the lesson had so many different kinds of questions - matching, multiple choice, picture identification, listening activities, speaking into the mic and more. I thought this was such a smart way to learn a language online, because it constantly makes you listen to and speak the language, alongside the traditional flashcards and fill in the blank study methods. I like how the platform tracks your accomplishment and daily streaks - the owl is adorable and it made the whole lesson feel like a game. That was motivational for me, and it made me want to keep going without it feeling like I'm grinding schoolwork out.

Both platforms were super enjoyable to use and had their own strengths. Khan Academy felt more academic and structured, which is great for strict topics like math and science, or even SAT/MCAT/standardized test prep (which I saw was an option). Duolingo made learning a language so much fun in a much more informal way, but it was equally helpful. Overall, it was a great experience, and I'm glad I took the time to try them both out!