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Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#31

Post by bherb »

runawaybottle wrote: post #14
stevekemp wrote: post #2

I'm a sysadmin/developer/devops-guy, but despite "knowing" Docker I had a lot of fun going through this course, once I'd completed it I found I'd learned a few useful things, and my understanding was much more comprehensive: https://devopswithdocker.com/ My first time doing online-learning, and registering for the university, but now I've done it I'm gonna work my way through a few more of the courses. (You don't nee…

Thanks, was actually looking for good devops courses the other day.

And did you find any? I'd be interested as well.

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#33

Post by maerF0x0 »

xwdv wrote: post #27
maerF0x0 wrote: post #24

Ideally we'll get to a point where there is a really well produced course on everything such that new courses will only be required for entirely new fields. I was commenting to a friend the other day that it's insane that we hire 1000s of teachers to teach roughly the same math class 2x per year for 40 years. Instead I'd rather a fraction of those make a truly fantastic video course and then the remaining fraction co…

Not a good idea. One course to rule them all in a field creates a risk of massive amounts of people learning bad information and reinforcing it through sheer majority. Better for people to learn the same information in different ways and from different sources.

I guess I agree in the most extreme (singular case) which i assume would never happen. But I do think that there is an efficient set that is much smaller than 1000s of teachers 2x per year x 40 yrs. Maybe modify my comment ^^ to "dozens" or something like that, and that would naturally be multiplied by languages/countries as I see it unlikely there'd be massive reuse across those boundaries.

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#34

Post by frankie_t »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #24

Ideally we'll get to a point where there is a really well produced course on everything such that new courses will only be required for entirely new fields. I was commenting to a friend the other day that it's insane that we hire 1000s of teachers to teach roughly the same math class 2x per year for 40 years. Instead I'd rather a fraction of those make a truly fantastic video course and then the remaining fraction co…

I would certainly hope so, in a sense that this being free and available to everyone can really help, especially poor and underprivileged, but also lifelong learners that can't attend a university.

On the other hand, making a good mooc is a massive undertaking and it's unclear where does the money should come from. IIRC the initial idea behind moocs was that the certificate is going to be prestigious and people would want to pay for it. But what happened was that far more people would drop off early, and those who complete rarely bought the pdf.

Also I don't think online remote learning can substitute offline on-campus. Even very immaterial things like CS or math can benefit from in-person interaction with professors, which also further depend on the personality of the student. Immersion in the studying atmosphere is much deeper (you being among other students) which, for me anyway, is a huge motivation boost. Then there is also networking and the baggage of useful acquaintances that you come with when you graduate.

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#35

Post by jlelonm »

xwdv wrote: post #27
maerF0x0 wrote: post #24

Ideally we'll get to a point where there is a really well produced course on everything such that new courses will only be required for entirely new fields. I was commenting to a friend the other day that it's insane that we hire 1000s of teachers to teach roughly the same math class 2x per year for 40 years. Instead I'd rather a fraction of those make a truly fantastic video course and then the remaining fraction co…

Not a good idea. One course to rule them all in a field creates a risk of massive amounts of people learning bad information and reinforcing it through sheer majority. Better for people to learn the same information in different ways and from different sources.

No offense, but are you joking? This is an extremely cynical take.

You don't see any benefit to having one mega amazing course?

You think there's no way to overcome the limitation you mentioned (bad information) at all? How about a peer review process?

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#36

Post by frankie_t »

sbdmmg wrote: post #5

Just finished "Model Thinking" [1] taught by Scott E. Page. I really enjoyed this class. It provided me with several very useful mathematical tools to think more clearly about important and frequent problems. Scott is a great teacher. [1] https://www.coursera.org/learn/model-thinking

I've seen this one in 'the old days', but never actually took it, just skimmed through the introduction. It was hard for me to grasp what I would take from it, even though it seemed interesting.

Can you please summarize what you took from the course? How would you use outside of the course the information you've learned? I would imagine something like "I've learned a model A that can be applied at real life situations such as a, b to get better insight", or maybe even "I can write a simulation to predict how some system will evolve in the future"?

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#37

Post by IMAYousaf »

I got to help teach one!

This answer doesn't answer the question that was prompted, but I volunteered for Stanford's Code in Place (introductory CS) and it was kind of amazing getting to be on the other side of the MOOC experience as a TA. I lead 5 assigned class sessions with a small group of people (never more than 10) and held 5 other office hour style sessions as well.

It was a really rewarding experience and I think a lot of people who can volunteer for it should consider doing so if Code in Place continues.

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#38

Post by mennis16 »

excitednumber wrote: post #19
_tk_ wrote: post #7

Meta: I have had the same question as well and I'm sure that I will have it again in six months. IMO this submission has potential to be a regularly re-submitted post like 'Who is hiring?'.

May I suggest "who is learning?"

I like this idea! I'm not sure how it would actually play out, but one of the things I feel is missing about OCW is just having someone else to chat with that is going through the materials at ~the same time. The standard MOOCs have forums but the student discussions there are also usually not great/not really what I am looking to recreate with my "side learning".

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#39

Post by javajosh »

hackart wrote: post #17
otras wrote: post #10

MIT's 6.824: Distributed Systems (taught by Robert Morris) is completely open and available online, and it includes video lectures, notes, readings, and programming assignments from as recent as Spring 2020 (including half of the lectures recorded from home as the pandemic strikes). The assignments even include auto-graded testing scripts, so you can verify your solution to the assignments. It's not necessarily a MOO…

I agree. One of the best courses i had taken on Coursera was the Algorithms series by Robert Sedgewick. Apart from going through the lectures, i had obtained a great satisfaction from solving the assignments. But this year, i have taken up the lab assignments for the following: https://cs144.github.io/ https://tc.gts3.org/cs3210/2020/spring/info.html Both have been recommended earlier on HN. Next on my list is 6.824

I started that course, by my God his presentation is so...sleep-inducing for me. Contrast this with Peter Norvig, who is engaging and scintillates with passion about the subject. By contrast, Sedgewick has this smirk on the whole time, and talks in a monotone. His content is first rate, of course, but sheesh, he's got to work on that pedagogy!

Re: Ask HN: Did you take any fresh MOOCs as of 2020?

#40

Post by searchableguy »

jlelonm wrote: post #35
xwdv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a good idea. One course to rule them all in a field creates a risk of massive amounts of people learning bad information and reinforcing it through sheer majority. Better for people to learn the same information in different ways and from different sources.

No offense, but are you joking? This is an extremely cynical take. You don't see any benefit to having one mega amazing course? You think there's no way to overcome the limitation you mentioned (bad information) at all? How about a peer review process?

Why does it even need to be one mega course?

Millions of institutions exist. Even if you take 1% of them and tell them to create a freely available course, it's good enough. Beside, I don't understand how many public funded universities don't release everything they do or teach. It's just weird imo.

Why does education need to be expensive? Why should you have to pay for it?

It's one of those things that I don't understand the reason for being behind paywall.

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