The odersky one is good.
Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
181–190 of 320 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Probabilistic Graphical Models, Daphne Koller – the first course in the specialization has a very good and engaging start, but the gap between lectures and problems widens quickly after that (maybe that's why the author boasts about a "challenging" course "not for everyone"). I'm hesitant to take the next course of the specialization.
Is PGM still relevant as it was five years ago, given the renaissance in deep learning and other NN techniques?
Checkout http://edwardlib.org/ and https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/contrib/bayesf....
Also Bayesian Methods for Hackers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16482421
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#183Robotics, UPenn: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/robotics
Excellent introduction to the algorithms that underlie control systems for robots. For the assignments, you program Matlab simulators of robots. It is comprehensive and not dumbed down: plenty of calculus involved! I loved it.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#184Most fun: Pat Pattison, Songwriting, Coursera. Very good lectures, very good material, very well presented. Teaches a lot about writing song lyrics in just 6 weeks, breaks it nicely down to steps and recipes. I used to think that the best feature of MOOCs is the automatic grading and feedback from programming homework, but in this course, for the homework songwriting you gave and got feedback from 3-5 random people i…
Yes, I enjoyed the Pattison songwriting class as well. At first his applying the "strong" and "weak" concepts to every aspect of a song lyric seems overly simplistic, but it actually starts to make sense. I came into class with considerably previous experience in writing poetry, but thought I learned a lot from him and my peers. His breaking down a performance coaching example was also very instructive.
Other music MOOCs I enjoyed:
The Berklee "Developing your Musicianship" series on Coursera taught by George W. Russell. Started off thinking this was too elementary, but the ear training is valuable, and I learned a lot about the use of diatonic chords, and even the few simple patterns he taught improved my song writing enormously.
The Berklee "Jazz Improvisation" class taught by Gary Burton. Very cool to be taught by a living legend, and his selection of songs was refreshingly modern. On the down side, skill levels of the students varied widely, so peer review was more miss than hit.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#185As a serial MOOCist I cannot single out any one so here is a list per domain. Data Science Introduction to Probability - The Science of Uncertainty,math oriented MIT/EDX Difficulty:5/5 Videos:5/5 Material and exercises:5/5 Usefulness: 5/5 Learning from Data, math oriented formerly Caltech/EDX now on caltech, check the exercises and you will see the difference in quality with Andrew Ng: Difficulty:4/5 Videos:4:5 Mater…
Hey antman, thanks a lot for the comment! Can you elaborate a bit more on how MooCs have made a difference in your life? Thank you.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#186Three Coursera MOOCs I particularly enjoyed: * Discrete Optimization: almost entirely problem-driven, very challenging and entertaining prof; https://www.coursera.org/learn/discrete-optimization * Crypto I: very deep, thorough and crystal clear explanations; https://www.coursera.org/learn/crypto * Computer Networks: excellent overall course covering a wide variety of topics; https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~51747…
I LOVED discrete optimisation
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#187Most fun: Pat Pattison, Songwriting, Coursera. Very good lectures, very good material, very well presented. Teaches a lot about writing song lyrics in just 6 weeks, breaks it nicely down to steps and recipes. I used to think that the best feature of MOOCs is the automatic grading and feedback from programming homework, but in this course, for the homework songwriting you gave and got feedback from 3-5 random people i…
Andrew Ng's class was great! For a tougher class that focuses on one of the technologies, I recommend Geoffrey Hinton's "Neural Networks for Machine Learning" on Coursera. Really eye opening for me, and fairly close to the leading edge in deep learning, as far as I can tell. I felt that the exercises were more detailed and challenging than in Ng's class, and thus I ended up learning more.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#188Circuit and electronics MITx 6.002. Great lectures, a joy to watch. Put me on the path to EE full-time.
Really outstanding class! Prof Agarwal was an excellent lecturer, the course material was well prepared, and lots of tutoring material was made available.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#189Science of Everyday Thinking: https://www.edx.org/course/science-everyday-thinking-uqx-thi...
I took the first incarnation of this and it was consistently interesting, entertaining, and useful. A good romp through cognitive biases, decision-making to counter them, the scientific method, skepticism, memory and learning, and more. I've started and dropped a lot of MOOCs. This one stands out because I was consistently eager for the next installment to drop.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?
#190CS50x and Stanford's Startup Engineering one. Got me into programming and part of an exclusive club of MOOCs I've started AND finished.
+1 for Chuck Eesley's startup engineering one! how did your team experience pan out?