How Udacity's Greatest Effect will be in the Developing World

http://blog.nyaruka.com/how-udacitys-greatest-effect-will-be-in-the-d

by nicpottier • 14 years ago

61 10 14 years ago

blog.nyaruka.com

JacobIrwin• 14 years ago

I am student in Udacity's CS101 course and your observations are spot-on. In the past, I have used Khan, codeacademy, and watched the Intro to Comp. Sci. MIT OpenCourseWare lecture series - Udacity indeed does a superb job of combining the best elements of these learning platforms into one (for CS).

As a side, in paragraphs 7 and 13 you may wish to correct the course's length to most accurately reflect, 'seven weeks'. (source: http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs101#tab-syllabus)

manish_gill• 14 years ago

So far, I'd agree that Udacity does a way better job than any of the other online courses do. Khan Academy is pretty good, but for Computer Science, Udacity is almost perfect. I've never been more excited to take an online class. It has the perfect combination of human interaction(that Codeacademy lacks) and lessons intended for online students(which almost every other courses except the Stanford ones lack). I've been frustrated by the quality of education in my Uni for the past year, and always taken a keen interest in online classes.

I only wish there was a similar class for Algorithms/Data Structures. Almost all other subjects, I've found good resources online which I can learn from, but MIT's old Algorithms and Data Structures class, taught by Prof.Charles Leiserson, is a far advanced class. It focuses more on the theoretical proofs, methods, than it does on implementing the actual algorithms. Not lying, I was in tatters after watching some of the lectures, lost confidence, and was convinced I would never be a good programmer. (I'm better now, and more confident in my abilities).

Lets hope there's more good stuff online.

Abundnce102• 14 years ago

I too really enjoyed working through Udacity yesterday. It looks like they will be offering an ALGORITHMS AND DATA STRUCTURES course soon.

I hope in the future that employers will look at our 'online transcripts' from Udacity, KhanAcademy, etc. as opposed to putting so much weight on which University you went to. As you stated, I bet people will end up learning more from the courses they take from Udacity then their local Uni...

Abundnce102• 14 years ago

"Looking fifty years into the future, I think it is clear we are on the cusp of yet another revolution, in learning, where not only will incredible educational programs be available to all, but that those programs will be superior to every teaching tool that came before them."

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It's safe to say that our Education system here in America is sub-par. I recently visited my high school to see what was happening in the 'new' computer programming class. I was surprised to see every student had their own iMac - definitely a step up from when I was there. But the thing that really puzzled me was the fact that the teacher teaching the computer programming class had no experience with computers or programming, whatsoever.

He had them working through Codecademy, which as the author described as, "immediately throwing students into a programming environment built right into the web page. Codecademy's courses provide no videos, no lecture notes, rather they are programs themselves, guiding you through principles by having you code." I found a lot of these kids didn't understand basic programming concepts, such as the modulus operator (%). It's tough to move forward when you don't grasp the small details. I liked the fact that students were presented the opportunity to write code and see the results but I felt it was lacking instruction, the kind of detailed instruction provided by KhanAcademy.

And this is where Udacity excited me! It took the best from both KhanAcademy and Codecademy and built something truly remarkable. Now, it doesn't have the best UI, the UX can be a bit clunky at times, but it's a huge leap forward.

Solutions like Udacity, and those to follow, will only help revamp our education system - whether it's computer science, math, or history - and make learning fun again. I agree with the author, I can't wait to see what comes of this in fifty years...

graeme• 14 years ago

I just finished the homework for CS 101. I was impressed. The problems progressed from easy to reasonably hard.

Even programmers had trouble with #9, to judge from the forum comments - it demanded creativity, rather than knowledge of syntax.

The best part was that you can unambiguously test your answers before submitting them. So you must learn the concepts, but you can learn by correcting yourself rather than waiting for positive or negative feedback.

bonsai• 14 years ago

@graeme Can you explain what creativity is demanded for #9 question? As I see it is really basic elementary school math.

dripton2• 14 years ago

I tried signing up for a Udacity course once, but they asked for my email password, which I consider phishing. They're on my boycott list now.

Fivesheep• 14 years ago

they asked for an email as id, and a password.

dripton2• 14 years ago

No, they also asked for my email password, so they could harvest my address book. It was optional, but optional phishing is still phishing. Maybe they've stopped doing that now, but they were doing it a year ago.

useful• 14 years ago

The 373 class is very good. They change things up enough to make sure you understand the concepts. I think I might be picking up some sensors and motors from sparkfun pretty soon.

How Udacity's Greatest Effect will be in the Developing World

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