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OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

openclassroom.stanford.edu

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#21
post #8

I really respect Stanford's willingness to share content for free. They seem to have let go of the elitist notion of the past wherein content is worth so much to universities. This feels like they actually want people to learn.

Bump. In the past, I've been through Stanford's IOS dev course and ML course (via iTunes). Currently, I'm doing the AI course. It is truly amazing that Stanford is giving away this content for free. As an academic, it makes me wondering how education will change over the next 10 years. If a prof gives a fantastic lecture in the Fall of 2010, does he need to repeat himself in 2011? I had the experience of lecturing an…

I'm taking the ML class and Dr. Ng occasionally mentions in the videos how he talks to Silicon Valley start-ups to helped them implement algorithms. What if the future professor not only make his money from teaching at a university but by consulting with businesses? She would just be using her expertise to teach in a different area. There's often a disconnect between academia and business that doesn't make a lot of sense.

+1 to what everyone else is saying in this thread about the Stanford classes, I'm loving the ML one so far.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#22
post #16

It seems that there is a digital divide between universities that "get it", and universities that don't. I applaud universities like MIT and Stanford for opening up education for everyone. Other universities, like NC State and Georgia Tech, give platitudes about equal access to education for all but then fail to deliver. At the end of the day, this is because online education for them is not about equality, but rathe…

Yes, I love this model where you can effectively educate yourself for free, or train for a certification without paying. Then you can Suntzu it (as it were) and only pay to take exams for a course you know you'll pass.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#23
post #16

It seems that there is a digital divide between universities that "get it", and universities that don't. I applaud universities like MIT and Stanford for opening up education for everyone. Other universities, like NC State and Georgia Tech, give platitudes about equal access to education for all but then fail to deliver. At the end of the day, this is because online education for them is not about equality, but rathe…

Yes, I love this model where you can effectively educate yourself for free, or train for a certification without paying. Then you can Suntzu it (as it were) and only pay to take exams for a course you know you'll pass.

Allow me to highlight that this works for certifications and not degrees. For an actual degree, you'll still need to pay through the nose, meet attendance requirements, and complete coursework before you may sit for the exam.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#24
post #14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bump. In the past, I've been through Stanford's IOS dev course and ML course (via iTunes). Currently, I'm doing the AI course. It is truly amazing that Stanford is giving away this content for free. As an academic, it makes me wondering how education will change over the next 10 years. If a prof gives a fantastic lecture in the Fall of 2010, does he need to repeat himself in 2011? I had the experience of lecturing an…

> I worry that it might not be sustainable. The rise of Wikipedia with the concomitant decline of commercial, paper encyclopedias offers some insight into the future of education. In the future, there will be more education available and it will be very cheap. What will not be sustainable anymore is a career in education where one gives essentially the same lecture for 30 years but gets paid as if he has created an e…

>What will not be sustainable anymore is a career in education where one gives essentially the same lecture for 30 years but gets paid as if he has created an entirely new lecture every year. //

It will be interesting to see how this affects the development of subjects like mathematics. Without the income from teaching students how will the capitalist system maintain academics in research? Who will pay if education effectively becomes free?

Don't get me wrong. It's fantastic that a brilliant lecturer can now lecture to as many people who choose to watch the video - that's not quite educating them but almost. I see that an institution then can train millions of people using a single good lecturer and a system of auxiliaries, admin staff and what-have-you. But then what of those who were doing [not directly/immediately commercial] research supported by their lecture positions.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#25
post #2

Any idea if the database videos can be downloaded, just like the computer science lectures

yes , they can be. There is a tab on the upper right corner if you are signed on for the course.

Does anyone know if these videos will be available after the courses are over? I'm in the ai class and I'd like to do the others too but I don't have the time to do all of them.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#26
post #16

It seems that there is a digital divide between universities that "get it", and universities that don't. I applaud universities like MIT and Stanford for opening up education for everyone. Other universities, like NC State and Georgia Tech, give platitudes about equal access to education for all but then fail to deliver. At the end of the day, this is because online education for them is not about equality, but rathe…

Yes, I love this model where you can effectively educate yourself for free, or train for a certification without paying. Then you can Suntzu it (as it were) and only pay to take exams for a course you know you'll pass.

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not, but if you know the material, does it matter how you acquired that knowledge? Many Universities do allow credit-by-examination because of this very reason.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#27
Other great free courses (many with video):

Carnegie Mellon: http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses

Michigan: http://open.umich.edu/

Berkeley: http://video.google.com/ucberkeley.html

MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ http://mitworld.mit.edu/

Notre Dame: http://ocw.nd.edu/

Open University (UK): http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/

Fulbright (economics): http://ocw.fetp.edu.vn/home.cfm

Yale: http://oyc.yale.edu/

Khan Academy: http://khanacademy.org

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#28
post #27

Other great free courses (many with video): Carnegie Mellon: http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses Michigan: http://open.umich.edu/ Berkeley: http://video.google.com/ucberkeley.html MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ http://mitworld.mit.edu/ Notre Dame: http://ocw.nd.edu/ Open University (UK): http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/ Fulbright (economics): http://ocw.fetp.edu.vn/home.cfm Yale: http://oyc.…

University of Washington (Computer Science and Engineering): http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/course-webs.html

Some of the video lecture series:

CSE 421: Introduction to Algorithms:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse421/06au/v...

CSE P 501 Compiler Construction:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep501/09au/...

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#29
post #10

After the first week of the AI and Machine Language class I'm truly impressed. I feel I'll be putting more effort into this than most of my classes in college simply due to the metrics and ease of UI for the in video question. Now they should add achievements like for the ML class, "3 perfect first attempt"... or stuff like that ;p Also anyone knows of a good online video lecture on Computer graphics? Something with…

Same feeling here, and actually I felt frustrated with the AI class. After looking at the others the lack of a larger standalone "exercise" section was disappointing.

Yeah I like the setup for the ML class better. You can easily make 100 in the class and all that counts is learning the material which I find much better system.

And by letting you redo the assignment they get to actually see if it takes someone 1,2,10,50 tries to get them all right so they can figure out the problems.

Re: OpenClassroom: Free video courses from Stanford University

#30
post #8

I really respect Stanford's willingness to share content for free. They seem to have let go of the elitist notion of the past wherein content is worth so much to universities. This feels like they actually want people to learn.

Bump. In the past, I've been through Stanford's IOS dev course and ML course (via iTunes). Currently, I'm doing the AI course. It is truly amazing that Stanford is giving away this content for free. As an academic, it makes me wondering how education will change over the next 10 years. If a prof gives a fantastic lecture in the Fall of 2010, does he need to repeat himself in 2011? I had the experience of lecturing an…

  "Will the advent of online education make that situation worse?"
My guess is that we will still need teachers, but their role will change. They will spend more time tutoring students or helping them make progress on individual projects.
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