Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
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Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#2There's no content on the website, yet – except Norvig's 1 minute speech. It looks like a data structures oriented course but I'm not sure at all. Hope it becomes something tempting about designing program architectures besides shuffling poker cards.
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#3I have a question perhaps someone knows the answer to: is Udacity concentrating on short, relatively easy classes for mass appeal and Coursera concentrating on more difficult and rigorous classes?
I am currently taking two Coursera classes (one is on probabilistic graphical models and the other on NLP) and so far at least, I am impressed by the depth of material covered and general quality. I will probably need to spend 10 to 15 hours a week on each class.
There are some subjects that I am interested in that I would like just a lighter weight overview, get a lay of the land - I think that this is what Udacity is for.
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#4Dr. Norvig is no doubt a genius in computer science, and Udacity is certainly looking promising considering that it's able to hire such influential people... but that said, it doesn't look like he has any actual teaching experience, and educating is made up of a different skill set than computer science. Every teacher has to start off having never taught before, but nevertheless, this makes me a little hesitant—are my concerns legitimate or not?
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#5I'm interested in this material. After talking with a UT professor I get the impression that a big challenge for students is forming a good model in their heads of just what computation is.
I plan on teaching a local Skillshare class in this soon and currently I'm keen on using Dr Racket and stressing the importance of referential transparency; however I get the feeling that people are going to want to use Python.
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#6Enrolled! Is it possible to "audit" the course and just watch the 50 minutes of promised video or will I have to complete homework assignments and such in order to proceed through the lectures?
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#7Dr. Norvig is no doubt a genius in computer science, and Udacity is certainly looking promising considering that it's able to hire such influential people... but that said, it doesn't look like he has any actual teaching experience, and educating is made up of a different skill set than computer science. Every teacher has to start off having never taught before, but nevertheless, this makes me a little hesitant—are m…
I have to agree, I love Norvig's writing, but I was really underwhelmed with his teaching ability in ai-class. I though Thrun was a much more enthusiastic and elucidating teacher. It's also possible that Norvig and Thrun placed different priority on the course. PAIP is one of my favorite programming books, so I'm really surprised that someone that would write a text so well would have such a hard time getting that same energy to come across teaching.
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#8Enrolled! Is it possible to "audit" the course and just watch the 50 minutes of promised video or will I have to complete homework assignments and such in order to proceed through the lectures?
You can audit
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#9Will Udacity courses be accredited? Will their accreditation be taken seriously? If not them, then some new startup in this space will be. They will spike the money-hose directed at HarvardYaleOxfordCambridge.
Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity
#10I have a question perhaps someone knows the answer to: is Udacity concentrating on short, relatively easy classes for mass appeal and Coursera concentrating on more difficult and rigorous classes? I am currently taking two Coursera classes (one is on probabilistic graphical models and the other on NLP) and so far at least, I am impressed by the depth of material covered and general quality. I will probably need to sp…
I think the sample size is too small to tell (there are more higher level courses from Coursera, different topics, professors), but from what I've seen of the NLP and Machine Learning Coursera courses versus Probabilistic Robotics, I think that Udacity has the better teaching model: short videos immediately followed by a quiz question, rather than Coursera's more traditional PowerPoint approach with maybe 1 question / 6 minutes or so. Thus hours/week is probably a poor metric (FWIW, I feel like I have spent alot of time on the programming assignments in CS373).