Imagine being able to collect all your knowledge in your pocket. This is possible due to a platform that gives easy access to education regardless of whether one is a student, teacher or parent. This platform is Khan Academy, the biggest online gateway for education with more than 26 million users. They are free to access 8 thousand video lessons and 100 thousandinteractiveexercises. The academy was launched by Salman Khan, an entrepreneur and analyst from the Silicon Valley in Low Angeles. The contact with Bulgaria took place in Sofia during the first of its kind meeting of the so-called language advocates working for the translation, localization and application of the platform worldwide. Bulgaria's representative at the meeting was Ivan Gospodinov, Chairman of Education Without Borders and initiator of the platform'stranslationin Bulgaria. We asked him whether Bulgarian education is outdated and what technologies it needs to improve.

“If we simply introduce laptops and tablets at school the only thing that will change will be that kids will keep their records electronically.This will add no particular value.We need to change the whole concept of what we want from education and what we want kids to do during classes.The curriculum should be developed with the idea of ​​students learning skills, not just getting knowledge.Such a platform cannot be built from top to bottom.It must come from actual teaching practices.One way is by giving more autonomy to schools.Teachers themselves should have the freedom to experiment and thus find a successful educational model."

What could be the role of the Khan Academy in this process? It began to build global popularity ten years ago. Behind it stands a complex system that actually retrieves information about the way in which users are educated. In this way, students and teachers can monitor the level and progress of acquiring knowledge, and thus optimize the educational process. Here is what Ivan Gospodinovthinks about the virtual academy.

„This is a platform, which aims not only to provide free education but also offers digital tools which teachers can use to manage their class online. So they get real information whether children make any progress and learn anything, where they have difficulties and how the teaching process can be fine-tuned. It makes sense to apply technologies in education when data from them are used rather than repeating old methods anew.”

The system has a monitoring mechanism for every user and works out a personalized model of teaching him/her. Ivan and his team have been engaged in translating the Khan Academy for five years now. During that time they have been in touch with all people committed to its translations worldwide. The Bulgarians together with the Academy's head offices in Mountain View in USA, decided to organize the meeting of language advocates in Bulgaria. The first official meeting was attended by translating teams from 14 countries. They discussed difficulties in implementing the platform, how teams from different countries can collaborate better and what the plans are for better implementation of the project.

Envoys from the Khan Academy head offices presented the new tools aimed to improve the website's translation. At what stage is the Bulgarian version?

"We have translated 2500 video itemsusing subtitles. There are over 200 lessons that are ready, but only now we are beginning to work on subtitles. The Bulgarian version of the gateway is still a beta version. Hopefully in a few months we can safely say that the website is entirely Bulgarian and is ready for use.”

English Daniela Konstantinova