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jph00, I found the first course hard to follow because of some broken links and poorly organized content. One link that was necessary kept taking me to a passwo

jph00, I found the first course hard to follow because of some broken links and poorly organized content. One link that was necessary kept taking me to a password protected page. This is about a month ago. It would be good if someone could revisit part.1 and make those minor editorial fixes if they haven't already done so. I might be being too precious about my time, but I also found the first video about your teaching philosophy somewhat gratuitous; I wish I hadn't watched it.

jph00 9y ago
The move from platform.ai to files.fast.ai could have been communicated better - sorry this impacted you. (We tried to highlight everywhere we could, but we can't change the video itself on YouTube unfortunately.) We're redoing the whole of part 1 starting in October so this problem will be fully resolved then. Until then, follow the links on course.fast.ai or the forums, rather than what you see in the part 1 videos, or just remember to always replace platform.ai with course.fast.ai.
- jph00 9y ago
  Oh and about the teaching philosophy video - until we posted that we had quite a few students express confusion about the top-down approach. After posting it, we've received a lot of positive feedback about it. I understand it's not helpful or interesting to everyone, but overall it seems to have been a successful addition for most.
  - drieddust 9y ago
    I am one of those guys who likes to understand everything before beginning to do anything meaningful. Needless to say I mostly fail. Your lecture on top down course philosophy actually helped me change my perspective. It's a welcome positive change so thank you.
  - daedalus13 9y ago
    I like the philosophy and I liked that you communicated it. I think you could have communicated it much more simply & compactly. I suggest you either hire an editor or take an editorial perspective to your content for the redo of part 1. The former is better than the latter because they will benefit from having a different perspective to you and might be able to give feedback that you haven't considered.
- daedalus13 9y ago
  thanks. I'd also like to suggest publishing a docker image as well for course software. Like you I like to also read / experiment when travelling and an offline workflow can often be handy.
  - jph00 9y ago
    There's a docker image available : https://github.com/deeprig/fastai-course-1 https://github.com/deeprig/fastai-course-1 . This is from the same excellent person who created http://crestle.com http://crestle.com , which has all the notebooks and data files for the course pre-installed. (You can also install everything locally using the setup scripts available on the course github repo.)
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      It might be worth it to do an updated version of course #1 at some point, many of the examples will not work now if you try to follow along with the video because libraries (for example Keras) have been changed or upgraded. (I know you have plenty to do, so really no pressure, this is simply a nice to have for newcomers that 'tuned in late'.)
      - jph00 9y ago
        Yup we're starting it in October! :) (Although if folks follow the course and use the AMI or setup scripts provided, all the correct versions will be installed automatically still today.)
        leesec 9y ago
        Hi Jeremy, Recently started the first course and wanted to say I am really loving it. Thank you and Rachel for your time and effort into making this topic more accessible. Getting things set up for lesson 1/2 I noticed there were a few confusing hiccups along the way, I was wondering how do I get access to edit the wikipedia to smooth out a few issues I struggled with? The forums are generally helpful but it's a lot to wade through and overwhelming for newer participants.
- j_s 9y ago
  You can add annotations to the videos with the right links, right?
  - jph00 9y ago
    Apparently they're getting rid of annotations.
    - j_s 9y ago
      Ok then cards or whatever annotations have been replaced by, but something! https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/cards https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/cards
      - jph00 9y ago
        I had high hopes for them, but it turns out it just puts a tiny 'i' icon in the corner of the screen, with no way (AFAICT) to draw attention to it. When we redo part 1 in October, we'll try to find a way to incorporate a clear link to an errata page or FAQ in each video, so that anyone with issues has one place to go.
        j_s 9y ago
        Is this a volunteer effort on your part? I don't mean to be unnecessarily harsh in that case, but otherwise: I'm not sure I can any more strongly say that you need to get this URL into these videos using whatever tools you can, whatever tools the platform provides. If someone misses it because of the ineffectiveness of the platform, you still get credit for trying! I assume it should also be the very first thing in the video description at this point. You are losing many more people who would never take the time to share this issue with you due to stale content! (There's a reason it's half-way to the top on your announcement of part 2...)

jph00 9y ago

The move from platform.ai to files.fast.ai could have been communicated better - sorry this impacted you. (We tried to highlight everywhere we could, but we can't change the video itself on YouTube unfortunately.) We're redoing the whole of part 1 starting in October so this problem will be fully resolved then. Until then, follow the links on course.fast.ai or the forums, rather than what you see in the part 1 videos, or just remember to always replace platform.ai with course.fast.ai.

jph00 9y ago
Oh and about the teaching philosophy video - until we posted that we had quite a few students express confusion about the top-down approach. After posting it, we've received a lot of positive feedback about it. I understand it's not helpful or interesting to everyone, but overall it seems to have been a successful addition for most.
- drieddust 9y ago
  I am one of those guys who likes to understand everything before beginning to do anything meaningful. Needless to say I mostly fail. Your lecture on top down course philosophy actually helped me change my perspective. It's a welcome positive change so thank you.
- daedalus13 9y ago
  I like the philosophy and I liked that you communicated it. I think you could have communicated it much more simply & compactly. I suggest you either hire an editor or take an editorial perspective to your content for the redo of part 1. The former is better than the latter because they will benefit from having a different perspective to you and might be able to give feedback that you haven't considered.
daedalus13 9y ago
thanks. I'd also like to suggest publishing a docker image as well for course software. Like you I like to also read / experiment when travelling and an offline workflow can often be handy.
- jph00 9y ago
  There's a docker image available : https://github.com/deeprig/fastai-course-1 https://github.com/deeprig/fastai-course-1 . This is from the same excellent person who created http://crestle.com http://crestle.com , which has all the notebooks and data files for the course pre-installed. (You can also install everything locally using the setup scripts available on the course github repo.)
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    It might be worth it to do an updated version of course #1 at some point, many of the examples will not work now if you try to follow along with the video because libraries (for example Keras) have been changed or upgraded. (I know you have plenty to do, so really no pressure, this is simply a nice to have for newcomers that 'tuned in late'.)
    - jph00 9y ago
      Yup we're starting it in October! :) (Although if folks follow the course and use the AMI or setup scripts provided, all the correct versions will be installed automatically still today.)
      - leesec 9y ago
        Hi Jeremy, Recently started the first course and wanted to say I am really loving it. Thank you and Rachel for your time and effort into making this topic more accessible. Getting things set up for lesson 1/2 I noticed there were a few confusing hiccups along the way, I was wondering how do I get access to edit the wikipedia to smooth out a few issues I struggled with? The forums are generally helpful but it's a lot to wade through and overwhelming for newer participants.
j_s 9y ago
You can add annotations to the videos with the right links, right?
- jph00 9y ago
  Apparently they're getting rid of annotations.
  - j_s 9y ago
    Ok then cards or whatever annotations have been replaced by, but something! https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/cards https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/cards
    - jph00 9y ago
      I had high hopes for them, but it turns out it just puts a tiny 'i' icon in the corner of the screen, with no way (AFAICT) to draw attention to it. When we redo part 1 in October, we'll try to find a way to incorporate a clear link to an errata page or FAQ in each video, so that anyone with issues has one place to go.
      - j_s 9y ago
        Is this a volunteer effort on your part? I don't mean to be unnecessarily harsh in that case, but otherwise: I'm not sure I can any more strongly say that you need to get this URL into these videos using whatever tools you can, whatever tools the platform provides. If someone misses it because of the ineffectiveness of the platform, you still get credit for trying! I assume it should also be the very first thing in the video description at this point. You are losing many more people who would never take the time to share this issue with you due to stale content! (There's a reason it's half-way to the top on your announcement of part 2...)