Communications Technology

Salman Khan from California agreed to tutor his younger cousin, Nadia, in maths remotely using tablet technology.

“I thought these video lessons would be a good supplement. Nadia started improving significantly and more family wanted to see them, so I put them on YouTube. Others started to randomly access them and it just went from there.” says Khan.

Five years, 2000 video lessons, and 41 million views on YouTube later, Khan is on target for his mission of “providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere” - with one faculty member.

Khan has university degrees in mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, and an MBA from Harvard Business School - but no formal teaching qualifications.

Last year he caught the attention of Bill Gates (who uses the videos personally to “remind myself of things”, and for his children) and Google - who have provided funding, enabling Khan to leave his job as a hedge fund analyst and concentrate on the Khan Academy.

He now has a small team developing user-paced exercises “allowing the Khan Academy to become the free classroom for the world”.

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Sydney schools insist they would never ask photographers to airbrush shots of students, in the wake of an outcry over a Melbourne teenager’s “bouffant” look in a digitally altered picture.

Students from Our Lady of Sion College in Box Hill discovered their school photos had been retouched to change hair styles and cover up earrings.

National School Photography, who took the photos, said the school’s daily co-ordinator, Julie Johannes, sent them an email asking for the changes to be made after the school received proofs.

The school principal, Karen Jebb, said the photography company advised that the changes wouldn’t be noticeable and the school did not double check the photos before they were handed to students.

Many Sydney schools said they would never consider asking for school photos to be digitally altered.

SCEGGS Darlinghurst head of school Jenny Allum said there would never be the need.

“SCEGGS girls always wear their uniforms so neatly that we’ve never had any cause to consider that matter,”.

Sydney Girls High School principal Andrea Connell agreed.

“No. I’ve never heard of anything so silly.”

Karen Gair, Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College’s director of development and community relations, said the school had never thought of asking for changes.

“I can safely say that’s never happened, never even been considered.”

Ms Gair said the girls themselves make sure they look good for school photos, while teachers are on hand to see that students are neat and tidy.

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Cameras installed high in a tree in the US state of Iowa have made an internet sensation of a family of bald eagles, whose nest is streamed online day and night.

“Why viral, I’m not really sure,” Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, said of the success of the eagle webcam.

Mr Anderson had been transmitting live images of the nest, 24 metres high in Docorah, Iowa, mainly for schools and universities.

But this year, using a new site, UStream, the eagles are challenging the likes of troubled actor Charlie Sheen for internet popularity. There have been 11 million online views, the project’s website says.

About 150,000 viewers at a time check out the live action, captured by two cameras installed on branches 1.5 metres above the nest.

The male and female eagles have been together since the winter of 2007-08, the project’s website explained. They have successfully hatched and fledged eaglets each year since.

Interest spiked in late February when the mother laid three eggs, two of which have hatched. The third is expected to hatch any day now.

Most days viewers can see the wind pushing about the feathers of the eagles, as well as spot the remains of a muskrat, rabbit, crow and trout lying in the nest.

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