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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

#11

Post by SkyMarshal »

waiwai933 wrote: post #4

Dr. 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…

He co-taught Intro to AI at Stanford last fall. I sat in on a few of his sessions. He was fine. Maybe not a Richard Feynman level lecturer, but few are.

He's also a superb technical writer, if you've read any of his books [1] or website blurbs [2].

I don't think the quality of his teaching ability will be an issue for anyone.

Edit: Obviously some disagree. My own personal opinion is to overlook and ignore presentation style, but others may need that to stay engaged. YMMV. Learning from Peter Norvig is quite enough in my case.

1. http://norvig.com/

2. http://norvig.com/sudoku.html; http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html;

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#12

Post by abecedarius »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

I 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'm not with Udacity (though I did talk to the team last year before they launched). The difference with the Coursera courses I'm seeing is they're more conventionally lecture-heavy with a few questions mixed in, while the Udacity ones try to exploit the new medium for more interaction and to encourage people to think more on their own. I see no reason that style can't work for harder courses; I don't know if they intend to go that way. (I can say the CEO had lots more in mind to do, and what we see in the courses now is just a start.)

I'm taking the PGM class too and in fact right before I switched to this tab I was stuck on the d-separation question because I hadn't had enough practice on the active-path stuff, apparently. So I'd like to see Coursera work more towards the Udacity interactivity, while keeping their greater polish.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#13

Post by viscanti »

marcovaldo wrote: post #9

Will 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.

With version control software like git (and especially github), and the ability for anyone to build anything on their own, accreditation doesn't matter much. Not every company agrees, but enough do that it's not a big deal. The real question is "can you do the job", and with programming, it's not too difficult to show that you can, if you can.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#14

Post by abecedarius »

waiwai933 wrote: post #4

Dr. 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 can't think of anyone with more to teach on good taste in programming. Admittedly that doesn't answer your question -- it's a different medium from the books he's done such a great job on. But where are you even going to find another course on this exact subject? I'm genuinely curious.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#15

Post by marcovaldo »

viscanti wrote: post #13
marcovaldo wrote: post #9

Will 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.

With version control software like git (and especially github), and the ability for anyone to build anything on their own, accreditation doesn't matter much. Not every company agrees, but enough do that it's not a big deal. The real question is "can you do the job", and with programming, it's not too difficult to show that you can, if you can.

I think we can agree most people reading this site and competing in the startup space know accreditation isn't too important. Aside from us, there is the 99.999% of the professional workspace where this idea is heretical. For them, a reasonably credible system of accreditation carries a lot of weight. The post-Uni startup that addresses these concerns will take most of the pot.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#16

Post by kmfrk »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

I 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…

The algorithm course for Coursera looks like it's fairly general in its scope.

I wouldn't call it "light", though, and it's not that good in my personal experience FWIW. Courses will vary, of course, but the attention to presentation in the Norvig video is mind-blowing compared to Coursera's algorithm course whose videos gloss over everything with hastily-scribbled, illegible black on white.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#18

Post by sgk284 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

I 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…

In my experience, Udacity isn't concentrating on short, easy classes. They've simply chosen to start with courses that have larger appeal.

Sebastian Thrun, the professor for CS373, has routinely stated that the caliber of the coursework and lecture material is equal to or beyond what he'd expect from his Stanford classes at the same level.

The teaching model they use is phenomenal though. If you haven't tried it, you should. They do brief 2 to 5 minute videos, followed by questions and coding exercises testing what you just learned. You learn things in very gradual increments, and are immediately forced to apply that knowledge. By the end of the lecture you're left thinking "Of course it works that way."

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#19

Post by vibrunazo »

moizsyed wrote: post #17

So many courses, so little time!

So many new awesome courses this year. I enrolled in so many of them. No way I'm gonna be able to follow half of them. But it's still worth to try. Since these are easy to follow videos, you can just watch them during your lunch or just before going to sleep anyway. Way much better than watching TV at least. :)
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