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What devices and specifications work best with Khan Academy Districts?

Updated

For the best experience with Khan Academy Districts, consider the tips and general guidelines below.

Hardware & Software Specifications

Student use: for desktop web-based access

  • Hardware supported:
    • Windows PC, Apple Mac, and Chromebooks
  • Browsers supported: we support the latest versions of:
    • Google Chrome
    • Firefox
    • Microsoft Edge
    • Safari

For additional detail on browser support, see this online article.

Student use: mobile web and mobile app access

  • Khan Academy is supported on mobile web as well as our mobile app, for students. 
  • iPads and Android tablets are supported for mobile web and mobile app
  • For our mobile app, it is available for download:
    • in the Apple App store for iOS (supports iOS 15 and above)
    • In the Google Play Store for Android (supports Android 9.0 and above)

Note: Initial district account activation is not available on the mobile app, please use the mobile browser instead.

Teacher use: 

  • Desktop web-based access (per hardware & browsers listed above) also applies to Teachers. All functionality, including access to their Teacher Dashboard, is available.
  • The Teacher Dashboard (teacher tools) are not available in the mobile app (iOS or Android)

District and School administrator access (for Administrator reporting):

  • Desktop web-based access, per hardware & browsers listed above

Network specifications

The following bandwidth recommendations provide guidance for use in the classroom.

  • For video watching, adequate bandwidth is necessary to ensure a smooth connection. Most Khan Academy videos require less bandwidth than live-action content, but we suggest~1.5 Mbps bandwidth per student or device playing standard-definition video.
  • If students are focused mainly on exercises, the suggested bandwidth is 150 kbps per user.
  • When considering network setup for portable devices, ensure every device has a strong wireless connection. When many devices are used simultaneously, the wireless network often becomes weaker.
  • Because Khan Academy videos are hosted by YouTube, it is necessary to unblock YouTube for Khan Academy to work properly.

Firewall configuration

In order for all Khan Academy material to be available to your students in your district, please remove any viewing restrictions and allow access to the following URLs:

We make changes to the above from time to time; an up-to-date list can be found here.

Note: If after initial activation (see the section below) your students log in via Google, you also need to allow access to the URLs for the respective login pages for the Google app engine.

Rostering & SSO configuration

Khan Academy Districts is a product that uses Clever for both rostering and SSO. All students, teachers, and administrators must be included in the district’s Clever implementation and connected to the Khan Academy district application in Clever. 

For SSO, we recommend teachers and students activate their Khan Academy accounts by accessing the Clever portal and selecting the Khan Academy app. Teachers may also choose to activate via an email sent to them, and Students also have the choice of activating by joining with a Class Code (provided by the teacher to students). 

Additional Requirements

  • The district must provide student email addresses
    • That said, students are not required to actually have access to this email inbox
    • Unique-to-student “fake” email addresses can be used instead
      • This email is used by Support to find the student’s record and assist them
      • Important: If fake addresses are used, students will all have to activate via Clever, as joining by class code requires them to enter their school email   
  • Technology Accesses - Student:Device ratio 1:1 or 1:3 needed for optimum use
  • Schools must be US domestic

Accommodations for students

Our goal is to help ensure that learners with varying abilities and needs are able to access our materials. 

Our general content, including quizzes and tests, have time limits; students have all the time they need and can repeat any practice they desire until they have mastered the material.

As assistive technologies change and evolve, we strive to keep our site up to date with the most popular technologies on the browsers we support.  

We conduct accessibility reviews and use our findings to improve our software. We have improved our modals to enable keyboard navigation and better screen reader compatibility, adjusted color contrast to meet the WCAG contrast ratio standards, and updated icon designs that previously relied purely on color to indicate status change.

  • For learners with low vision or colorblindness: Khan Academy has developed its own tool for checking accessibility. Since its introduction, the number of help requests concerning accessibility issues for those with low vision or colorblindness has been in steady decline. We've also added the ability to remove color from videos. Logged-in users can choose this feature via Settings > Accessibility. 
  • For learners who are deaf or hard of hearing: Transcripts & subtitles are available.
  • For learners with sensitivity to animations: Khan Academy has a reduce-motion feature. Logged-in users can choose this feature via Settings > Accessibility.
  • For screen reader users to automatically hear the captions without the audio from the video overlapping, there is a checkbox in Settings that allows learners to mute the videos on the platform.