I owe my career to Malan and his CS50 course. That's how I learned to code. I wish him only the best.
Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
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Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#22CS50 is a really well-crafted course, and Malan is an amazing educator. Taking this class online is one of the reasons that got me interested in CS and programming.
I think that this course in particular really highlights the impact of a good teacher. In college I've had multiple professors who quickly made my dislike subjects that otherwise I would have really liked.
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#23My son took the AP version of the CS50 course last year in high school and showed me some of the exercises and videos. I immediately updated a lot of my own class materials after watching them and relentlessly hyped the edX class as a great companion to what we were learning. The entire environment, the culture, that Professor Malan has created is absolutely fantastic and I am incredibly grateful that Harvard has mad…
Can you get into some specifics that you adopted? I'm listening to the pedagogy video I linked in another comment and so far my takeaway is that Harvard / Malan has a LOT of money to spend on video production, TAs, and the like. That's not easily replicable.
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ageist against whom? Gray hair isn't a problem image-wise if you are a professor nor is youth. I think the writer is just painting a picture.
Yeah, normally as quick to comment on casual ageism as anyone. But, in this case, it's the New Yorker and I think they're just humanizing the story. (And, per another comment, with respect to "knowing their audience" I expect the New Yorker readership skews relatively old.)
I hate to read such articles. I don’t understand why they are so popular in the Anglosphere. It always comes off as if I am reading a failed fiction writer, not a journalist.
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#25I took CS50 in 2013. Malan was a phenomenal teacher and presented complex concepts with a pace and clarity that made them easy.
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, normally as quick to comment on casual ageism as anyone. But, in this case, it's the New Yorker and I think they're just humanizing the story. (And, per another comment, with respect to "knowing their audience" I expect the New Yorker readership skews relatively old.)
I hate to read such articles. I don’t understand why they are so popular in the Anglosphere. It always comes off as if I am reading a failed fiction writer, not a journalist.
The New Yorker in particular is more literary than journalistic. Not the magazine to read if you want "just the facts."
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The harder story to tell that this piece is avoiding because of the difficulty is the institutional dynamics. It's hinted at in the article more or less directly, but the entire mindset at many places is so far from what's conveyed in this New Yorker piece that it sort of misses the ball completely. At the time the story in this article begins, administrators at many places were completely unfamiliar with the general…
Even MIT, which was pretty early on to online content with OCW, if you look at some of the early statements and materials, was very clearly positioned as raw materials to help teachers assemble their own courses. There was very little audio or video. It was pretty clear that MIT was taking some care to not release something that was potentially competitive with even auditing an actual MIT class.
When was this? Not doubting you but by the time I came across OCW in 2012 there were quite a few courses with video lectures, at least you could cover the standard frosh year curriculum with videos and much of the year 1 CS courses. So that gets you an "associates" worth of CS content right there, and this was before I recall MOOCs being a hot topic more broadly.
There are also still quite a few MIT courses that have course websites/YouTube channels with videos but are not linked to on OCW nor adapted for edX. At least I've taken 3 such courses in the last couple years. So I don't think they are being strict about distribution either.
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#28I agree that Malan is an amazing educator and both energetic and energizing. I took CS50 via the Extension School, and got a chance to meet him when we showcased our final project. He is very approachable and down-to-Earth. But what was the point of contrasting his “glossy black hair” with the white hair of MIT’s Grimson/Guttag? Very cheap shot, and not even subtly ageist.
Ageist against whom? Gray hair isn't a problem image-wise if you are a professor nor is youth. I think the writer is just painting a picture.
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Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#29“ Malan’s remote-teaching setup involves a host of technology, including a seven-foot-wide interactive computer screen, called a Microsoft Surface Hub” Don’t hear much about the Surface Hub these days. It’s alive and well?
> Don’t hear much about the Surface Hub these days. It’s alive and well?
Microsoft released an updated version - the Surface Hub 2S - about a year ago. The intention was this could be upgraded in-situ using a cartridge to become the Surface Hub 2X. The 2X was meant to have all the hotness Microsoft were showing off in demos at the time (it has now been cancelled - [1]).
I procured one for some R&D, it's only sold through OEMs and service providers, for around $10k (more if you get the steelcase stand and battery pack).
For what it is it's quite good: it's industrial design and feature-set goes well beyond a lot of the competition (Google Jamboard, etc), although its applications are still quite niche.
One nice feature is you can output the touch input to a connected Windows laptop, making it a (rather expensive) huge multi-touch external monitor.
[1]:https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21119915/microsoft-surface...
Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire
#30Taking CS50 feels similar to watching a movie that has an auteur’s fingerprints all over it. Every word in the lecture, every technology, and every problem set has been carefully crafted to fit together to create a cohesive experience. College instructors everywhere should take the course to see what the zenith of multimedia online education looks like.
One thing to keep in mind is that (according to the article) he took over the course in 2007.
I have been interested in pedagogy and talking with all the great teachers, the one thing I see in common is the ability to update, improve, and iterate. Constantly. Pretty much every time the course is taught there is something slightly different. There is risk there (sometimes changes are harmful) but that is how you make the course better.
My guess is that is the case here, and that the course 13 years ago was not nearly as refined. But he had a vision and stuck with it.