I love this. I really do but I do have a fear:<p>There is beginning to be too much fragmentation in subject matter.<p>There is no discernible ultimate goal (degree or overall subject matter certificate) or any kind of solid path to coalesce all of the work a student puts into the classes into a coherent structure -- a well defined learning path.<p>I am hoping this is part of a strategy to gauge demand for different subject areas and, from there, create a cohesive program because if it is going to be more or less random offerings...I don't know how that is going to remain relevant or viable.<p>It just seems confusing as to what their intentions are.
The new courses are great, but there's something I don't understand about these course websites. I'm doing probabilistic graphical models, but I just want the content to learn, and I don't really care much about some certificate. I also don't have a lot of time this particular month. I'm guessing that this is true for the majority of people taking the course (I'd be interested to see how many people who signed up actually kept up). What is the point in making time limited offerings for an online, recorded course?
I really like the ongoing Crypto course - it will be interesting to see how they implement classes in disciplines like healthcare or history.
But obviously they are making good use of their recently raised $16m [1]
[1]<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857184" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857184</a>
It's kind of funny. I along with many of you I'm sure read the article in The Atlantic last night about Facebook and it being time to "move on". Coursera is a great example of someone promisingly attacking a newish problem. Basically, it is the type of startup I would assume the author of the article would advocate for. But then there at least two courses I counted on modeling and analyzing "the network". It's ironic, although it really just furthers the Atlantic writer's point, in that these are mature things that we are beginning to understand in an extremely detailed way.
Link to previous HN discussion from yesterday:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857119" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857119</a>
This is ridiculously good. I would sign up for all of these courses if I had the time to. It's been a while since I've been this excited about learning.
Wanted to do the Algo class, turned out to be a pain in the butt. These people need to work on their friction problems, and it felt like they're just flying by the seat of their pants. I hope they're not just half-assed Khan pretenders.