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Stanford to host more online classes

cs101-class.org

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Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#91

Post by hornd »

ddlatham wrote: post #63
ya3r wrote: post #46

Direct URL of classes: New classes: (start in Jan/Feb 2012) Computer Science 101: http://www.cs101-class.org/ Software Engineering for Software as a Service: http://www.saas-class.org/ Human-Computer Interfaces: http://www.hci-class.org/ Natural Language Processing: http://www.nlp-class.org/ Game Theory: http://www.game-theory-class.org/ Probabilistic Graphical Models: http://www.pgm-class.org/ ----------------------…

Interesting that the SaaS class is being done by two Berkeley profs (and is the only one missing the Stanford logo).

I think it's great. Hopefully this idea will catch on with other universities; one day we might see an entire Khan Academy type site for computer science classes taught by the worlds leading experts.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#92

Post by amjith »

gbcodr wrote: post #82

I wish they would add a course on Probability or Probability and Statistics.

I highly recommend http://khanacademy.org for Probability.

http://www.khanacademy.org/#probability

I went through all the videos on that subject in preparation for AI Class and it helped me tremendously.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#93

Post by WildUtah »

dirtyaura wrote: post #4
lambada wrote: post #2

Although I had to drop the previous classes due to time, this looks promising. Particularly with the unified style; that is the one thing that seemed to hurt this years effort - The most widely advertised course (AI) had the worst layout and 'features'.

Both ML and DB classes are better executed than AI class. AI class is backed with a broken platform by a small startup, whereas ML class was run by code developed in Stanford. AI class also had jarring video editing which totally broke the rhythm. Both ML class and e.g. Khan Academy has this natural flow that is pleasure to follow. To me it has been surprising how big difference in experience the technical execution…

I wouldn't call the ai-class.org platform broken. It's just not done yet.

The AI class is like a beta test and there are plenty of bugs and problems. The content is still good, but the programming problems and automated grader that would be necessary for students to really absorb the advanced material doesn't seem to be on their radar. The result is a certain superficiality.

The ML class is much more developed. In the first few weeks the contrast of the finished, professional seeming ML class with the rough and hacky AI class was extreme but AI is catching up.

I'm looking forward to improvements in both platforms and new material in the spring. Other competitors like Kahnacademy are exciting, too.

I'd like to see more study groups around the world building this into a movement with broadening impact. Neither class had direct support for forming study groups. If you have to go on Reddit to get together with people, you're excluding 50-90% of the people who would use a simple no-friction geo-aware meetup-style tool if it were on the site's front page and main menu. Since study groups have a minimum size threshold to remain viable, that eliminates a magnified portion of potential participants.

So I'm pleased and still hope that this could be a mass-movement that leverages technology to change the way education is done around the world. Competing platforms is a better bet than one great platform for perfecting hard to build but needed features like labs, programming assignments, study group support, office hours and teachers' assistants, and homework help and hints.

The future, at least in our industry, is bright.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#94

Post by [deleted] »

dirtyaura wrote: post #4
lambada wrote: post #2

Although I had to drop the previous classes due to time, this looks promising. Particularly with the unified style; that is the one thing that seemed to hurt this years effort - The most widely advertised course (AI) had the worst layout and 'features'.

Both ML and DB classes are better executed than AI class. AI class is backed with a broken platform by a small startup, whereas ML class was run by code developed in Stanford. AI class also had jarring video editing which totally broke the rhythm. Both ML class and e.g. Khan Academy has this natural flow that is pleasure to follow. To me it has been surprising how big difference in experience the technical execution…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#95

Post by alok-g »

pitt1980 wrote: post #56

Since there seems to be someone involved in running these classes in this thread, I just want to throw this out there. The higher ratio of quizes per minutes of lecture the better. I think its ideal to never go more than 2-3 minutes without asking us something, even if its trivial. Right now I'm taking the AI classes, some of the units follow this rule and keep us paying attention through what I imagine would otherwi…

I would say that forcing longer time spans before quizzes forces you to maintain your attention and thus would help you retain your learning for longer.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#96

Post by zeratul »

karpathy wrote: post #9

I get easily excited about education-related topics so I may be over-reacting, but I think these classes will jump-start an educational revolution, and that people will start to fully appreciate just how inefficient traditional teaching methods are. Some people like to say that this is nothing new because video lectures were posted on the internet for several years now (for example MIT Open Courseware etc.), but I th…

Karpathy: Do you know if prof. Ng will cover the issue of sparse data in his lectures?

When the number of dimensions is much greater than the number of samples and most of your cells in a matrix are equal to zero then most of the ML algorithms don't behave too well. It's very common problem in NLP to have sparse matrices.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#97

Post by lesterbuck »

ya3r wrote: post #46

Direct URL of classes: New classes: (start in Jan/Feb 2012) Computer Science 101: http://www.cs101-class.org/ Software Engineering for Software as a Service: http://www.saas-class.org/ Human-Computer Interfaces: http://www.hci-class.org/ Natural Language Processing: http://www.nlp-class.org/ Game Theory: http://www.game-theory-class.org/ Probabilistic Graphical Models: http://www.pgm-class.org/ ----------------------…

I presume that glaring .com for the AI class is another indicator that the AI class will be a for profit operation at some point.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#98

Post by peaigr »

beagledude wrote: post #80

Does anyone know when Tim Roughgarden's class will be available? Data structures and algorithms?

If you're talking about his undergrad class (CS 161), there are at least videos of his lectures on OpenClassroom: http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/CoursePage.php?...

The lectures are broken up into segments (which you might find convenient or annoying). There's not much more than that, unfortunately. If you want exercises, his problem sets are mostly from Kleinberg & Tardos, sometimes with problems from CLRS.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#99

Post by kombine »

karpathy wrote: post #9

I get easily excited about education-related topics so I may be over-reacting, but I think these classes will jump-start an educational revolution, and that people will start to fully appreciate just how inefficient traditional teaching methods are. Some people like to say that this is nothing new because video lectures were posted on the internet for several years now (for example MIT Open Courseware etc.), but I th…

Thank you very much for your efforts, I've been enjoying ML class so much. The only thing I disagree with, is that the courses are time-bound. I have a day time job, and I'm only able to take 1 course. However I don't see any reasons why you shouldn't allow people getting through the courses outside of the time frame. This would be more convenient for a good part of the target audience, because it's the people who actually don't have enough time to enroll in the real university course.

Re: Stanford to host more online classes

#100

Post by queensnake »

karpathy wrote: post #22
amirmc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The homework and in-video questions are what keep me involved. I have such a busy schedule that its difficult to maintain the discipline to simply keep up if there were only videos. However, having external deadlines and practical things have encouraged me to make the time (and I'm very happy about it). I agree that this is potentially revolutionary. Before these courses, I couldn't have imagined doing a 'distance-le…

thanks, I agree with you-- there is something psychologically interesting about it that I can't quite understand, but it certainly seems like this format better maintains student motivation. It's a step in the right direction at least... just the first iteration of a gradient descent ahead of us ;) Also, good point about the programming exercises. Especially with topics like this I think it is easy to fall into trap…

> there is something psychologically interesting about it that I can't quite understand

I swear, it's an extra pleasure hearing a song I like on the radio (over just playing it myself), knowing that a lot of other people are listening to it too. Maybe that's a new form of 'social computing' to be exploited :).

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