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 think this misses the point entirely. There is a huge difference between low-quality video/audio recording of a prof mumbling for an hour and post-processed, perfected snippets of videos presented in a coherent fashion, and most importantly with supplementary materials that encourage people to actually apply their knowledge and get feedback. In addition, the fact that many people take the class at the same time also enhances the experience for everyone, and we've seen study groups form everywhere around internet.
Full disclosure, by the way, I'm a CS PhD student at Stanford and I am a (voluntary) co-creator of the programming assignments for the current ML class. It is a lot of work, but the way I see it, we only have to put great assignments together a single time, and thousands of people can enjoy them and benefit from them for years and years to come. That is what I call time well spent.
I hope all these classes go well, and I'm looking forward to telling my kids about what education used to be like in the old days. I have a feeling that they'll find it hard to believe me.
" I'm a CS PhD student at Stanford and I am a (voluntary) co-creator of the programming assignments for the current ML class. It is a lot of work, but the way I see it, we only have to put great assignments together a single time, and thousands of people can enjoy them and benefit from them for years and years to come. That is what I call time well spent."
As a consumer of Stanford's online classes(though not the ML class. I'm waiting for the CS 229 - vs the CS 229A - version), let me take the opportunity to thank you. Your efforts are totally appreciated. You are right, this is revolutionary. Glad to see that Stanford is keeping up (and building!) momentum rather than this being a one off effort.
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-learning' course. I suspect there are many other folks that feel the same.
Also, thank you for your work on the ML programming exercises! I've found them fantastic in getting my head around how to practically 'encode' the things from the videos. Much appreciated.
I have a masters in CS, and I am taking the online ML class. I highly appreciate how well organized the class is. Thankyou.
I have a question though, is there a way these classes can be made to be taken anytime a student wants?
The problem I am facing is that since I am also working fulltime, I just in time manage to submit the homework, and as a result, I can not take more than one classes at the same time, like the DB and AI classes in this case.
I'm taking the ml class right now, thank you! Everything you say is absolutely true, enrolling in this class vs watching some videos is like night and day:
- a large number of other students who are at the same cohort helping each other
- lecture materials
- programming assignments
- comprehension questions
I don't feel quite like I am taking a real masters level computer science class mainly because the assignments are easier (you guys set up a lot of the boiler plate for us and we implement a few core algorithms). That said, the assignments have been a big part of me retaining the concepts and since they are not ball breakers, I can actually keep up with 30-60 minutes a day, with perhaps a couple hours one day on the weekend.
Professor NG is also an amazing teacher. I'm cautiously optimistic that the other teachers will be as good.
I definitely agree with you on the "huge difference between low-quality video/audio recording of a prof mumbling for an hour and post-processed, perfected snippets of videos presented in a coherent fashion, and most importantly with supplementary materials that encourage people to actually apply their knowledge and get feedback" part.
I started the site noexcuselist.com as a page to direct people to the best places to learn on the web. In doing so, I had to go through tons of web pages claiming that they taught things for free. The sites that I was really excited for like the Open Courseware sites were a bit of a disappointment for me. It'd be pretty hard for someone to learn a entire topic using it due to the incomplete lectures, some classes that weren't available, and the lack of lecture notes and homework that went with it.
I'm pretty excited to see the development of this one that you're working on though. Good luck and keep us posted!
I largely agree with you, but, I feel that the in class presentations, when recorded well, are more engaging.
Personal opinion being what it is for me I find it far easier to listen to Professor Sahami's recorded lessons (CS 106A) for an hour than I do Prof. Widom's into to DB classes. This is not intended as a slight to any person at Stanford. The real difference comes down to watching someone engage an audience and some one speaking to a camera.
Strictly my opinion based on a very small sample pool.
I'm taking the ML class and I love it! I agree with everything you said above, and I'd love to see a more advance ML class in the future. Keep up the good work!
E-learning has the potential to: decrease the costs of getting an education, create the potential for "mass customization" of education, reduce credentialism in society, make learning an end in itself for many people, force universities to become less complacent, and probably many other effects I am overlooking right now.
Starting an e-learning startup is something I REALLY want to do. I love learning and I love startups.
I hope I can make that happen someday (nudges everyone with similar dreams).
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.
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.
Any chance (some of) the code for the platform could be shared? I particularly love the exercises (review questions) and the way some questions are embedded in the videos. Thank you and your teammates for some great work.
Thank you. There is attention to detail here. It actually amused me when I watched Andrew Ng's videos at 1.2 or 1.5 speed that his voice didn't become squeaky because it is frequency modulated.
Thank you for your work. I am in both the AI and the ML classes, and having some work that we actually do stuff, is a great learning aid and I wish the AI course had something similar too.
Just want to say "Thank you!" for all the hard work you and your colleagues put into ML class. This is the best learning experience I've had in my entire life.
So what are these courses? Video isn't working for me at the moment but judging by the descriptions they seem to be more involved than the CS courses:
Quoting from the Launchpad description:
Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to
customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the
chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works.
EDIT: 10 minutes later, the Technology Entrepreneurship class redirects to a blank page and is no longer linked to from the other courses...
Hey, think this means there might be even more courses coming out later?
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 otherwise be some pretty dense stuff.
A few of the units (looking at you Professor Norvig) have had stretches 15+ minutes of lecture without asking us anything, just going to say, retention from those stretches was low.
Personally I really like it when they quiz our intuition of a subject before they lecture it, though it seems like other people complain about that on the reddit forum
I, for one, am really hoping this is a start of a trend - where coursework, even if just in a prerecorded format, is available to all, with the tuition going towards the rich in-person experience and grading/certification for the student, much like the way the primary tech conferences have been trending for free content for al.
MIT OCW requires a far higher level of intrinsic motivation. Stanford has almost nailed it. While online learning has taken Space out of the equation, Time, it seems, is still a big variable. Having people do the course at the same time with deadlines is working. They just need to work through the technical glitches, which shouldn't be that hard.
FYI: the "CS-101" course is a really really basic introduction to computational thinking. If you want intro programming you probably want CS106A, which hasn't been put into this format yet.
101 is taught by Nick Parlante, though, who was one of my favorite profs at Stanford.
This is fantastic. I would also like to do some course in mathematics (under graduate level calculus, discrete mathematics ) to improve my skills. Are there any good places/resources where I can learn these things (video lectures with quizzes in between will be a nice choice). I am also ready to take a paid certified course if some reputed college is offering them online.
This is fantastic. A few weeks ago Sebastian tweeted about the possibility of having an online Master's when they met with the president of Stanford. Has anyone heard anything new about it?
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'.
For the ongoing courses it will be available, so I guess it will be the same for these also.The thing you miss out on taking them later is the structure of the class with deadlines (very good incentive to really sit down and learn!) and personal letter from the teachers
For me, as a brazilian computer engineering student, I think these classes are amazing. Although I study in one of the best computer schools in brazil ( www.cin.ufpe.br), my classes tend to be bad and boring. My teachers have Phd's and all those letters, but cant teach in a good and engaging way.
And my classes have old subjects, because they made the curriculum 10 years ago.
Thank you so much, Stanford, the teachers for the modern and brave choice to teach people all around the world, thanks for all the students engaged in making the classes available for everybody. and thanks hn buddies for always giving the good news.
Arghhhh. I find these incredibly frustrating. I am writing a senior honors thesis for my university, and wanted to take as few classes as possible this year to focus on my thesis work. The ML class has distracted me this semester, and it looks like things are going to get worse next semester.
On a serious note, does anyone know if there are plans to continue these courses next year? I suppose it will really depend on how well each class goes, but I mostly feel pressured to take these because I'm afraid I'll miss them.
This is very exciting news, very much an autodidact's dream.
I've been enjoying crawling my way through the great ML classes by Prof Andrew Ng, and had been wondering if by any luck other classes would be provided for future semesters. Seeing this just makes me really happy, and thankful to Stanford. Not only is it the future of education but also gives countless people around the globe a chance to learn topics they may otherwise have never had access to (I am one in this category).
Anyone know if AI-Class will be running again in 2012? The links between the 2012 courses suggest not, but that could just be down to Ai-Class being different.
My guess is AI and DB class will be running again in the fall of 2012. They will probably follow the schedule Stanford has on these courses.
Just a guess though
Unfortunately, Blackboards' patents preclude this from becoming a reality. For the next 15 years, Blackboard has an exclusive right to practice this "virtual classroom" business method.[1]
Their patent pledge[2] promises that they will not assert their rights against any open-source or home-grown initiative, which is why Stanford et al. are able to get away with hosting their own content in this format.
It's a harsh reality that by itself makes the case for patent reform.
One of the great hidden benefits of those classes is to taste the flavor of the classes, should they want to apply to the university. I would particularly interested in the difference between Berkeley classes (SaaS) and Stanford classes (CS101 or ML)
Thanks for everyone at Stanford working on this and making it possible. What an amazing collaboration between teachers and students (as the current ML, DB and AI classes show as well).
[+] [-] karpathy|14 years ago|reply
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 think this misses the point entirely. There is a huge difference between low-quality video/audio recording of a prof mumbling for an hour and post-processed, perfected snippets of videos presented in a coherent fashion, and most importantly with supplementary materials that encourage people to actually apply their knowledge and get feedback. In addition, the fact that many people take the class at the same time also enhances the experience for everyone, and we've seen study groups form everywhere around internet.
Full disclosure, by the way, I'm a CS PhD student at Stanford and I am a (voluntary) co-creator of the programming assignments for the current ML class. It is a lot of work, but the way I see it, we only have to put great assignments together a single time, and thousands of people can enjoy them and benefit from them for years and years to come. That is what I call time well spent.
I hope all these classes go well, and I'm looking forward to telling my kids about what education used to be like in the old days. I have a feeling that they'll find it hard to believe me.
[+] [-] plinkplonk|14 years ago|reply
As a consumer of Stanford's online classes(though not the ML class. I'm waiting for the CS 229 - vs the CS 229A - version), let me take the opportunity to thank you. Your efforts are totally appreciated. You are right, this is revolutionary. Glad to see that Stanford is keeping up (and building!) momentum rather than this being a one off effort.
[+] [-] amirmc|14 years ago|reply
I agree that this is potentially revolutionary. Before these courses, I couldn't have imagined doing a 'distance-learning' course. I suspect there are many other folks that feel the same.
Also, thank you for your work on the ML programming exercises! I've found them fantastic in getting my head around how to practically 'encode' the things from the videos. Much appreciated.
[+] [-] sharmajai|14 years ago|reply
I have a question though, is there a way these classes can be made to be taken anytime a student wants?
The problem I am facing is that since I am also working fulltime, I just in time manage to submit the homework, and as a result, I can not take more than one classes at the same time, like the DB and AI classes in this case.
[+] [-] krosaen|14 years ago|reply
I don't feel quite like I am taking a real masters level computer science class mainly because the assignments are easier (you guys set up a lot of the boiler plate for us and we implement a few core algorithms). That said, the assignments have been a big part of me retaining the concepts and since they are not ball breakers, I can actually keep up with 30-60 minutes a day, with perhaps a couple hours one day on the weekend.
Professor NG is also an amazing teacher. I'm cautiously optimistic that the other teachers will be as good.
[+] [-] lix2333|14 years ago|reply
I started the site noexcuselist.com as a page to direct people to the best places to learn on the web. In doing so, I had to go through tons of web pages claiming that they taught things for free. The sites that I was really excited for like the Open Courseware sites were a bit of a disappointment for me. It'd be pretty hard for someone to learn a entire topic using it due to the incomplete lectures, some classes that weren't available, and the lack of lecture notes and homework that went with it.
I'm pretty excited to see the development of this one that you're working on though. Good luck and keep us posted!
[+] [-] migiale|14 years ago|reply
By the way, will http://jan2012.ml-class.org/ be the same as the current ml-class? I mean is it the same course, or a more advanced one?
[+] [-] learc83|14 years ago|reply
I was very impressed with the quality and especially how easy it is to submit them.
[+] [-] darasen|14 years ago|reply
Personal opinion being what it is for me I find it far easier to listen to Professor Sahami's recorded lessons (CS 106A) for an hour than I do Prof. Widom's into to DB classes. This is not intended as a slight to any person at Stanford. The real difference comes down to watching someone engage an audience and some one speaking to a camera.
Strictly my opinion based on a very small sample pool.
[+] [-] dwhitney|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] itmag|14 years ago|reply
E-learning has the potential to: decrease the costs of getting an education, create the potential for "mass customization" of education, reduce credentialism in society, make learning an end in itself for many people, force universities to become less complacent, and probably many other effects I am overlooking right now.
Starting an e-learning startup is something I REALLY want to do. I love learning and I love startups.
I hope I can make that happen someday (nudges everyone with similar dreams).
[+] [-] kombine|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeratul|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Tichy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aroberge|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] utoku|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juhanic|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spariev|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexband|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pycassa|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ya3r|14 years ago|reply
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/
---------------------------
Old Classes: (already started)
Machine Learning: http://www.ml-class.org/
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: https://www.ai-class.com/
Introduction to Databases: http://www.db-class.org/
[+] [-] memetichazard|14 years ago|reply
Technology Entrepreneurship: http://www.startup-class.org/
Learn Launchpad: http://www.launchpad-class.org/
--------------------
So what are these courses? Video isn't working for me at the moment but judging by the descriptions they seem to be more involved than the CS courses:
Quoting from the Launchpad description:
EDIT: 10 minutes later, the Technology Entrepreneurship class redirects to a blank page and is no longer linked to from the other courses...Hey, think this means there might be even more courses coming out later?
[+] [-] ddlatham|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lesterbuck|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitt1980|14 years ago|reply
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 otherwise be some pretty dense stuff.
A few of the units (looking at you Professor Norvig) have had stretches 15+ minutes of lecture without asking us anything, just going to say, retention from those stretches was low.
Personally I really like it when they quiz our intuition of a subject before they lecture it, though it seems like other people complain about that on the reddit forum
[+] [-] ghurlman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramkalari|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmnoon|14 years ago|reply
101 is taught by Nick Parlante, though, who was one of my favorite profs at Stanford.
[+] [-] tutysara|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huherto|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lambada|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eliben|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henrikgs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roxtar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dudurocha|14 years ago|reply
Thank you so much, Stanford, the teachers for the modern and brave choice to teach people all around the world, thanks for all the students engaged in making the classes available for everybody. and thanks hn buddies for always giving the good news.
Will enroll to SaaS and hci or nlp.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rubergly|14 years ago|reply
On a serious note, does anyone know if there are plans to continue these courses next year? I suppose it will really depend on how well each class goes, but I mostly feel pressured to take these because I'm afraid I'll miss them.
[+] [-] NnamdiJr|14 years ago|reply
I've been enjoying crawling my way through the great ML classes by Prof Andrew Ng, and had been wondering if by any luck other classes would be provided for future semesters. Seeing this just makes me really happy, and thankful to Stanford. Not only is it the future of education but also gives countless people around the globe a chance to learn topics they may otherwise have never had access to (I am one in this category).
Signing up for NLP!
[+] [-] lambada|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henrikgs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giulivo|14 years ago|reply
also, what about the DB class ? will it be running again in 2012 ?
I couldn't "attend" more than one at the same time (especially the advanced tracks) and I already joined the ML class.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] itmag|14 years ago|reply
See here: http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-platform-that-universit...
If anyone wants to work on this, contact me :)
[+] [-] law|14 years ago|reply
Their patent pledge[2] promises that they will not assert their rights against any open-source or home-grown initiative, which is why Stanford et al. are able to get away with hosting their own content in this format.
It's a harsh reality that by itself makes the case for patent reform.
[1]: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...
[2]: http://www.blackboard.com/about-bb/patents/patent-pledge.asp...
[+] [-] rosh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beagledude|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gabaix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imrehg|14 years ago|reply
Thanks for everyone at Stanford working on this and making it possible. What an amazing collaboration between teachers and students (as the current ML, DB and AI classes show as well).
[+] [-] brown9-2|14 years ago|reply
The only problem with the winter classes is I can't decide which to take!