Dear friends,
The past 3 months were even more dynamic than usual and full of meetings with students, teachers and people who support our cause. As a result, we get more and more excited and inspired to quickly finish the translation of Khan Academy in Bulgarian and start more comprehensive awareness and adoption campaigns. Because Bulgarian students need to know about Khan Academy and need to use it now!
Below you can learn more about our latest interactions with the community, our successes with kids, our strong usage growth and our continuing work.
We find more and more local advocates
Simona Stoyanova is a geography teacher (see her below). We met her at the big annual conference Education 2016 held in Sofia at the end of October. Simona told us about her experience with Khan Academy:
She uses math lessons at Khan Academy to explain to her students concepts in the geography which the textbook assumes they already know. How do you scale a map linearly? What does exponential population growth mean for the future of our world? What do the contours of a map mean? It’s OK - Khan Academy’s math lessons can help! Finally, beyond the classroom,
Simona also studies with Khan Academy for her own career development and mere curiosity.
In October we introduced Khan Academy to students in the National High School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in Sofia. For our joy some of the students already knew Khan Academy, which is not surprising, but it is always nice to meet face-to-face users of the platform and to get feedback from them, as well as to inspire more learners. Those who have already had some experience with the platform were using Khan Academy mainly for preparation in math and IT exams at school or participation in competitions. Thanks to our visit, two more classes know about Khan Academy now.
We are part of a global community
In October we hosted in Sofia a conference of the Language Advocates of Khan Academy. The event gathered together representatives of the headquarters of Khan Academy, Crowdin (the famous international platform for localization and translation) and colleagues from the Khan Academy translation teams in Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Georgia, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden and Turkey. This meeting strengthened our feeling that we are part of a global community which has the potential to influence how education will happen in future. We discussed Khan Academy’s application worldwide, innovative ways to encourage children to learn, possible approaches for cooperation with government institutions and businesses to achieve greater dimensions of our efforts, etc.
We will pause with the personal stories here to let you read about our wider work. However, these and many other stories are what inspire us to keep going!
What we have been up to in the last 3 months - in figures
Meanwhile the translation and proofreading of Khan Academy lessons keep going with a stable pace - thanks to all your generous support! During the past 3 months we translated the subtitles of 335 videos more! We have been making the process of proofreading smoother and edited more than 200 000 words of already-translated content in mathematics.
The test version of Khan Academy in Bulgarian bg.khanacademy.org is becoming more and more popular too - thanks to all new translations and all communication efforts! In the period September – November 2016:
Our YouTube channel with dubbed videos KhanAcademyBulgarian had 10 400 video views (+15%).
This incredible growth is a result of the combined efforts of our team and you – our supporters, to make Khan Academy accessible for Bulgarian children in their own language. More lessons in Bulgarian mean more children could benefit from the platform. More Bulgarian kids learning with Khan Academy mean more Bulgarians being part of a global community of learners, it means also more knowledge gained, more self-motivation for development and real equal chances for everyone, everywhere.
We hope that you will continue to stand behind us. The results of your help are evident! You are part of making Khan Academy accessible to our children every time you support our cause. Do it also in the Christmas time! Donate an amount of your choice, devote your donation to a person you love and make it a gift, ask your colleagues or friends to start a monthly donation or just spread the word.
Thank you for all your support!
Links:
Dear friends!
The summer is almost over and the school year in Bulgaria will start on September 15th. Thanks to your support we used the hot months to add more content to Khan Academy in Bulgarian. Thank you for contributing to a great New School Year Gift!
Before we share some statistics, let us introduce to you one of our top translators, Krasi Ilieva. We asked her why she invests her time and resources exactly in our project, and why Bulgaria needs Khan Academy. Krasi: “It’s good to try to make a difference and that’s why I’m happy to make my contribution to this project. I very much like the idea that kids have free access to educational materials in the area they are interested, because not all Bulgarian children can afford private lessons. Khan Academy presents the respective subject in a very interesting and innovative way, which learners of any age can understand. Every lesson is supported by multiple illustrative examples. The children are stimulated to learn more so they can receive more badges of the Academy’s reward system. So far there is no such thing in Bulgaria.”
Thank you for being with us, Krasi!
Here is how you all have supported our fundraising in the past three months:
During the past 3 months we’ve translated 720K words to the Bulgarian Khan Academy site as well as the subtitles of 85 videos. The quality control process is time and resources consuming, but we are happy to report new progress on editing content too - we have talked with several experts and continue proofreading work with 2 people.
Who is using bg.khanacademy.org recently? Even if still in beta version, the site had 10,457 visitors in Jun-Aug (+24% YoY), and the total number of browsed pages is 67,001 (+28% YoY) in 16,087 sessions (+32%). Additionally, on our YouTube channel KhanAcademyBulgarian we had 7,700 video views (+45% YoY), even though it was a summer break for students.
In late June 2016, we presented Khan Academy at two exciting public events:
Thank you again for giving Bulgarian kids the tools to learn at their own pace and stay motivated to Learn Anything!
You can continue supporting us!
On September 21st, GlobalGiving will match your donations again! Online donations of up to $1,000 per donor can be matched at 30%, but only while funds last.
The $60,000 available in matching funds will be divided equally between the times stated above. If you need more information about this Time-Release Bonus Day, you can check here.
Support Khan Academy in Bulgarian here: https://goto.gg/23525
Thank you!
Links:
Dear friends and supporters!
It's been 3 months since the start of our “Khan Academy in Bulgarian” project at Global Giving. Thanks to your commitment and support we set off at good speed to accomplish our mission through collective effort.
Before we dive into the details of our work, here is what your help truly means for Alex, a 9 year old who just started enjoying his summer vacation with Khan Academy: “I like coding with Khan Academy. With JavaScript I can draw and make pictures move or disappear. I like it that I can make something meaningful out of something that appears meaningless. My first challenge was to draw a snowman. In the beginning I didn't know what to do and then I tried with ellipse and it worked! Then I had to draw the snowman’s hands as well. I also earn points and badges for completing different challenges. I'm having difficulties with the projects because of lack of examples. But I read the lessons again and I watch the video. And thank you for the widget that helps me when I make mistake.”
We share Alex’s excitement about making something out of nothing. For him and for the thousands other monthly users on bg.khanacademy.org, we continue working hard.
Here are just a couple ways you have supported our fundraising in the past three months:
During the past 3 months we translated 560K words to the Bulgarian Khan Academy. We emphasized the lessons and exercises from Khan Academy’s high-priority content - namely in mathematics and computing. This is milestone to enable the launch of the Live Version of the Bulgarian platform. Another reason why Khan Academy’s math content is especially important are the recent results at the national external assessment in mathematics for 14-year-olds. Unfortunately, every third student failed! We urgently need to react to this new high, giving Bulgarian students Khan Academy’s proven innovative tools and helping them to easily improve their math skills - for free. Thank you for your support on this long road!
At that moment we have translated 51% of the content of Khan Academy’s site (exercises, articles, etc.). Video lesson subtitles are also many - we have 63% in math and 16% in computing done. We are proud to be a top-5 most translated language on Khan Academy.
Translations are not everything, though. In terms of quality control, in May we started editing translated content with select editors. Thus, with your help, we took important new steps towards a high-quality Bulgarian version.
And more good news: Due to our strong motivation to enable Khan Academy’s Live version in Bulgarian soon, our team has grown with a new project coordinator - Stanislava Gateva.
All our project's efforts and achievements, aimed at helping Bulgarian children, teachers, and learners in general, reflect in the statistics too: bg.khanacademy.org, even if still in beta version, had 14 000 visits in the last 3 months, and the total number of browsed pages is 89 000 in 21 000 sessions. Additionally, our YouTube channel KhanAcademyBulgarian had 11 000 video views. The most viewed video lesson for the last three months was “The multiplication tables” - our ‘evergreen’.
Thank you once again, on behalf of Alex and many other kids, for giving them the tools to learn at their own speed and stay motivated to Learn Anything!
You can continue supporting us!
*** GG will ADD 50% to your DONATION ***
*** BONUS & MATCH DAY: June 15th ***
Donations up to $1000 will be matched by 50% on June 15th, 2016!
Also GG will award two $1,000 Bonus Prizes to the projects with the highest number of unique donors and most funds raised on that day. Matching on GlobalGiving.org lasts from 9:00:01 EDT until funds run out or 23:59:59 EDT on June 15th. So, according to where you live, the times are:
Funds run out quickly so please plan your donation in advance.
Support us here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/educate-bulgarian-children-with-khan-academy
We count on you. THANK YOU!
