Mathematics Professor Kevin Cheung started making YouTube videos this past summer for a couple of his fall third- and fifth-year classes. "I wanted to adopt the flipped classroom approach: one that requires students to watch and read the materials ahead of time and then we would discuss problems (easy and hard) in class. Students would see anonymous submissions during the class and we would critique the solutions."
He also created the Math Apptician channel so he could post videos that explained the mathematics behind some of the great apps available. Behind every great app, there is great mathematics, according to Cheung.
After hearing about the Next EDU Guru contest,Cheung submitted an entry though was doubtful of his chances of winning after seeing some of the other entries. In mid-October, Cheung was notified that he was one of 10 educators from Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia chosen to be flown to YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California, for a training session to learn more about making educational videos for YouTube. At the end of the session, one finalist would be named winner of the Khan Academy Prize. That honour went to Professor Cheung who received a $1000 prize from the Khan Academy who co-organized the competition with YouTube.
See the other competitors here.
Read a Toronto Star article on the competition and the Canadian finalists here.