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

One thing I forgot to mention. You can enter the course now and still get a good grade!

At least for CS 373, and I think for the other ones, they changed the grading scheme.

We have already had three homeworks due and are now on week 4. In the old scheme, you could drop one homework (out of seven). Homework was half the grade and the final the other half. So you could currently get a max of 66% on the homework.

They added a grading scheme that counts the final at 100%.

They will give you the better of your grade under the two schemes, to not disadvantage people who did well on the homework.

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I think the sample size is too small to tell (there are more higher level courses from Coursera, different topics, professors), but from what I've seen of the NLP and Machine Learning Coursera courses versus Probabilistic Robotics, I think that Udacity has the better teaching model: short videos immediately followed by a quiz question, rather than Coursera's more traditional PowerPoint approach with maybe 1 question / 6 minutes or so. Thus hours/week is probably a poor metric (FWIW, I feel like I have spent alot of time on the programming assignments in CS373).

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.

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.

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."

I started in the CS373, and having a not so good experience in programming, I found the course very difficult. I mean, the style of teaching is very good. When you program step by step, you learn more and feel more confident.

I think the difference between Coursera and Udacity, is the first one is more focused in lectures and homeworks, and the latter is more focused in practice all the time.

As a programming noob, I feel like I learned as much in a day on Udacity as I learned in a month left to my own devices using Khan Academy, The New Boston, and other online materials.

The fact that they show the immediate application of what you've learned goes miles into helping you remember it. To answer the question, they cover a lot in a short span of time and don't waste time teaching concepts that don't have immediate application.

It depends on the course. NLP and PGM are some fo the more hardcore Coursera courses.

Udacity is definitely focussed on shorter classes. I wouldn't call them easy though - accessible is a better word.

Anyone is able to take their CS 101 class - no prereqs are required. But it's fairly substantive. There are always forum complaints about how hard some of the homework is.

I think they've picked a good balance of accessibility vs. rigor. But I expect that as they add more classes, people will be able to use Udacity to acquire real skills.

Put another way: The fact that 50% of their current classes are for novices (i.e. one course) doesn't mean the situation will stay that way for long.

And they are very, very good at teaching and online delivery.

"is Udacity concentrating on short, relatively easy classes for mass appeal and Coursera concentrating on more difficult and rigorous classes?"

Absolutely, your inference hit the nail on the head. Coursera is trying to fill a gap. Very few people across the globe have access to high quality higher education.

Udacity on the other hand, though noble in in their cause, have considerably watered down lectures/assignments for greater accessibility. I can understand the watered down programming class for greater accessibility, since even limited knowledge of programming is something which can greatly empower people who had no knowledge of it before. But advanced classes like robotics are pointless if they don't go into depth of the topic.

I have to agree, I love Norvig's writing, but I was really underwhelmed with his teaching ability in ai-class. I though Thrun was a much more enthusiastic and elucidating teacher. It's also possible that Norvig and Thrun placed different priority on the course. PAIP is one of my favorite programming books, so I'm really surprised that someone that would write a text so well would have such a hard time getting that same energy to come across teaching.

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;

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.

"it doesn't look like [Peter Norvig] has any actual teaching experience"

From his bio, http://norvig.com/resume.html

1985-1986 University of Southern California Assistant Professor

1986-1991 University of California, Berkeley Research Faculty Member

Fwiw, my personal prejudice: Peter Norvig teaches extremely well. I preferred him to Sebastian Thrun in the original AI class. He explains the essence of complex things in a very systematic way, which is what I look for in a teacher, but Norvig's calm and quiet approach (vs say Thrun's more apparent enthusiasm) may not be everyone's ideal.

You can audit

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. :)

Actually, the Udacity courses have very active forums.

There is a good mix of experienced programmers and absolute beginners...if I ever have a problem, I usually have an answer within 5-10 minutes, and I get to return the favour frequently.

There is actually a very active social aspect to these Coursera and Udacity etc courses. You clearly haven't signed up yet, check out the forums for each class that are very active, the subreddits (main hub is at /r/OnlineEducation), and the many IRC channels (main hub is #free-class on Freenode). These act as effective study groups with people helping and discussing with each other many things about the courses at hand and related things. And as the other commenter noted, the students' backgrounds very greatly which makes it all the more interesting.

Peter fucking Norvig is going to sit you down and teach you some shit for free and all you have to say is 'argle bargle...social'?

Social: IRC, message boards, facebook, google+, skype, mumble, news groups, facetime, instant messenger, etc.

Try to teach someone something: Stack Overflow, reddit, hacker news, your own blog, also, all of the above under social.

Collaboration: google docs, drop box, ftp, gliffy.

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.

Check the TOS; it says pretty clearly they are not accredited and courses taken will not stand in for an accredited course.

Their business model depends on their ability to teach and then connect students with hiring employers (in interviews they indicated their business plan is to generate revenue through recruitment). Whether accredited or not, as a student, what's good for Udacity is good for me.

The professors are also well respected brand names in their own right. Having your introduction to probabilistic robots come from Thrun to me carriers weight