7 ms·

Edx Announced 7 Free Courses

133 points by md8 14y ago

beberlei 14y ago
Too much focus on Computer Science in my opinion. Udacity already covers CS in detail. The only interesting bit is the introductory chemics course, a focus on physics, chemics, biology and engineering could have set edx apart from udacity.
- anusinha 14y ago
  A lot of the computer science classes already have a lot of material in a ready to go digital format so it's easier to get them online. The others will follow, but it's harder to convert all the material from a "brick and mortar" class to a digital class of the same quality. There also might be a perceived need or demand for computer science classes.
- capsule_toy 14y ago
  B/c of Computer Science's current popularity, it would be a huge mistake to start an education initiative and not start with Computer Science.
salsayarroz 14y ago
I am confused, why is saas here, the same course is offered at coursera
- huherto 14y ago
  That is a good question. In both cases it is the Berkeley class.
- plessthanpt05 14y ago
  > the same course is offered at coursera Yeah, it appears to be the EXACT same course. I don't want to start a bickering match, but when I first saw this new course listing, I was pretty excited that it might be a SAAS course using Python. In any case, strange, as I just assumed that these sites (coursera, udacity, mitx, etc) were competitors and had some kind of exclusivity contract w/ the courses that they offered, though apparently not. Would be weird if we start seeing a bunch of duplicate courses pop up on multiple of these sites.
- Toshio 14y ago
  Berkeley is probably hedging their bets; they most likely expect Coursera to become more restrictive down the road - no other reason would make sense.
  - eupharis 14y ago
    To expand on that, the for-profit Coursera seems like a great partner for universities at the moment, but in the future, if they become a force, a platform with millions of students, their profit interest and the universities' interests could begin to diverge. Hopefully, the various platforms (Coursera, edX, Udacity) play nice together, i.e., it's only a small amount of work to setup the same course content on a new platform.
    - gwillen 14y ago
      > Hopefully, the various platforms (Coursera, edX, Udacity) play nice together, i.e., it's only a small amount of work to setup the same course content on a new platform. As Google SREs say: Hope is not a strategy. (Especially when you're hoping against the economic interests of the players involved.)
- GlennS 14y ago
  edX's software seems much higher quality than Coursera's at this point, so I can see why Berkeley would want to port their course to work on that platform as well. (My opinion based on having done the MITx Circuits & Electronics, and Game Theory and Cryptography from Coursera.)
- Kaedon 14y ago
  It looks like the edX course is 12 weeks whereas the Coursera course currently covers the first half of the course in 5 weeks.
- cpunks 14y ago
  Presumably, because Coursera's TOS require a substantial amount of notice to yank a course...
lunchladydoris 14y ago
I really hate it when the post titles are changed but in this case it's justified -- this is edX not MITx. I like that, as with the recent Caltech machine learning course, these courses look like they will really push people.
- md8 14y ago
  Edited.
dhawalhs 14y ago
Just added these to the list on Class Central(http://www.class-central.com http://www.class-central.com). With these and the addition of new Coursera courses last week, the single page site has grown really long.
- D3lt4 14y ago
  Thank you for doing this!
- lix2333 14y ago
  Hey, great site. Looks like you and me were thinking along the same lines. http://www.noexcuselist.com http://www.noexcuselist.com
duck 14y ago
Love how the picture on that site shows a guy wearing a Georgia Tech shirt at MIT. :)
- timtamboy63 14y ago
  Which guy?
munchor 14y ago
Hey guys! I don't really get the difference between these two: https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00x/2012_Fall/about https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00x/2012_Fall/about https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/CS50x/2012/about https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/CS50x/2012/about Any ideas?
- dysoco 14y ago
  Look a couple of posts above.
dysoco 14y ago
What would you choose ? MIT's 6.00x or Hardvard's CS50x ? MIT's one looks more mathematical oriented, and probably a bit more difficult but better quality (I've seen some of the Python videos of MIT's OpenCourseWare) CS50 looks more "fast paced" as it teaches you several paradigms, but I'd rather learn more C than Python. I can't make up my mind. I've programmed a bit, in Python, C and now a bit of C++ (Also a bit of Haskell) but I never took any kind of classes nor studied things like Algorithms or Data Structures in deep. What would you choose ?
- ljlolel 14y ago
  Do both.
  - rauljara 14y ago
    If you have a full time job, and any pre-existing side projects at all, that is not practical advice. Even if that isn't the case, some people would rather just do one for whatever reason. Everyone has that right. To answer parent's original question: I'm going with Harvard's. I started watching the open courseware lectures from MIT's a while ago, and though Eric Grimson was intelligent and clear, he just couldn't hold my attention.
    - ljlolel 14y ago
      You might be surprised that the synergy provided by doing both accelerates your learning. The first classes might take longer but you'll end up doing later assignments much more quickly than doing either alone. Plus you'll know the content better.
- anusinha 14y ago
  6.00x looks more theoretical and might teach you more computer science. CS50x looks less theoretical and more of a survey of different programming languages and patterns. It's a good "get up and running in several different ways" class.
- dhawalhs 14y ago
dfc 14y ago
The course images are almost impossible to read on the blackberry.
dfriedmn 14y ago
Berkeley's presence on both coursera and EdX is an interesting wrinkle -- they've got a quote in another article suggesting they can't control where their professors to decide to put their content: “Ultimately, our faculty will decide where they want to put courses up online, but we find that edX has values and methodologies very closely aligned with ours at Berkeley, so our institutional preference would be to use edX,” said Robert J. Birgeneau, the chancellor of Berkeley.
- nicklovescode 14y ago
  I was a bit surprised to see Berkeley as well. It was pitched as such a MIT & Harvard collaboration that I didn't get the sense other schools would be involved this early on. I'm glad they are offering classes here too though, EdX seems much more quality vs quantity. edit: woah, Dan!
idontlikebacon 14y ago
Anyone know when the actual platform will be open sourced?
dkroy 14y ago
Beautiful UI, I love it!
tikhonj 14y ago
I took CS188 (the AI course) recently and it was really great. Dan Klein is easily one of the favorite CS professors among the students--everyone really loves his class. He is, critically, a great educator. And, naturally, great fun. The lectures were certainly fun to attend even when the material was relatively easy. The online version only has half the material. However, this makes sense; the class is naturally divided into two parts. The first half was focused more on AI and search problems and the second part was more about machine learning. I suspect the only reason it is one class is because it has to fit in the semester system. Online, naturally, it's liberated from this constraint. Anyhow, I definitely recommend this for anyone interested in AI. And even if you're not interested in the field as much, it's a fun course and only lasts three months.

133 points by md8 14y ago

Too much focus on Computer Science in my opinion. Udacity already covers CS in detail. The only interesting bit is the introductory chemics course, a focus on physics, chemics, biology and engineering could have set edx apart from udacity.

anusinha 14y ago
A lot of the computer science classes already have a lot of material in a ready to go digital format so it's easier to get them online. The others will follow, but it's harder to convert all the material from a "brick and mortar" class to a digital class of the same quality. There also might be a perceived need or demand for computer science classes.
capsule_toy 14y ago
B/c of Computer Science's current popularity, it would be a huge mistake to start an education initiative and not start with Computer Science.

salsayarroz 14y ago

I am confused, why is saas here, the same course is offered at coursera

huherto 14y ago
That is a good question. In both cases it is the Berkeley class.
plessthanpt05 14y ago
> the same course is offered at coursera Yeah, it appears to be the EXACT same course. I don't want to start a bickering match, but when I first saw this new course listing, I was pretty excited that it might be a SAAS course using Python. In any case, strange, as I just assumed that these sites (coursera, udacity, mitx, etc) were competitors and had some kind of exclusivity contract w/ the courses that they offered, though apparently not. Would be weird if we start seeing a bunch of duplicate courses pop up on multiple of these sites.
Toshio 14y ago
Berkeley is probably hedging their bets; they most likely expect Coursera to become more restrictive down the road - no other reason would make sense.
- eupharis 14y ago
  To expand on that, the for-profit Coursera seems like a great partner for universities at the moment, but in the future, if they become a force, a platform with millions of students, their profit interest and the universities' interests could begin to diverge. Hopefully, the various platforms (Coursera, edX, Udacity) play nice together, i.e., it's only a small amount of work to setup the same course content on a new platform.
  - gwillen 14y ago
    > Hopefully, the various platforms (Coursera, edX, Udacity) play nice together, i.e., it's only a small amount of work to setup the same course content on a new platform. As Google SREs say: Hope is not a strategy. (Especially when you're hoping against the economic interests of the players involved.)
GlennS 14y ago
edX's software seems much higher quality than Coursera's at this point, so I can see why Berkeley would want to port their course to work on that platform as well. (My opinion based on having done the MITx Circuits & Electronics, and Game Theory and Cryptography from Coursera.)
Kaedon 14y ago
It looks like the edX course is 12 weeks whereas the Coursera course currently covers the first half of the course in 5 weeks.
cpunks 14y ago
Presumably, because Coursera's TOS require a substantial amount of notice to yank a course...

lunchladydoris 14y ago

I really hate it when the post titles are changed but in this case it's justified -- this is edX not MITx. I like that, as with the recent Caltech machine learning course, these courses look like they will really push people.

md8 14y ago
Edited.

dhawalhs 14y ago

Just added these to the list on Class Central(http://www.class-central.com http://www.class-central.com). With these and the addition of new Coursera courses last week, the single page site has grown really long.

D3lt4 14y ago
Thank you for doing this!
lix2333 14y ago
Hey, great site. Looks like you and me were thinking along the same lines. http://www.noexcuselist.com http://www.noexcuselist.com

duck 14y ago

Love how the picture on that site shows a guy wearing a Georgia Tech shirt at MIT. :)

timtamboy63 14y ago
Which guy?

munchor 14y ago

Hey guys! I don't really get the difference between these two: https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00x/2012_Fall/about https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00x/2012_Fall/about https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/CS50x/2012/about https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/CS50x/2012/about Any ideas?

dysoco 14y ago
Look a couple of posts above.

dysoco 14y ago

What would you choose ? MIT's 6.00x or Hardvard's CS50x ? MIT's one looks more mathematical oriented, and probably a bit more difficult but better quality (I've seen some of the Python videos of MIT's OpenCourseWare) CS50 looks more "fast paced" as it teaches you several paradigms, but I'd rather learn more C than Python. I can't make up my mind. I've programmed a bit, in Python, C and now a bit of C++ (Also a bit of Haskell) but I never took any kind of classes nor studied things like Algorithms or Data Structures in deep. What would you choose ?

ljlolel 14y ago
Do both.
- rauljara 14y ago
  If you have a full time job, and any pre-existing side projects at all, that is not practical advice. Even if that isn't the case, some people would rather just do one for whatever reason. Everyone has that right. To answer parent's original question: I'm going with Harvard's. I started watching the open courseware lectures from MIT's a while ago, and though Eric Grimson was intelligent and clear, he just couldn't hold my attention.
  - ljlolel 14y ago
    You might be surprised that the synergy provided by doing both accelerates your learning. The first classes might take longer but you'll end up doing later assignments much more quickly than doing either alone. Plus you'll know the content better.
anusinha 14y ago
6.00x looks more theoretical and might teach you more computer science. CS50x looks less theoretical and more of a survey of different programming languages and patterns. It's a good "get up and running in several different ways" class.
dhawalhs 14y ago

dfc 14y ago

The course images are almost impossible to read on the blackberry.

dfriedmn 14y ago

Berkeley's presence on both coursera and EdX is an interesting wrinkle -- they've got a quote in another article suggesting they can't control where their professors to decide to put their content: “Ultimately, our faculty will decide where they want to put courses up online, but we find that edX has values and methodologies very closely aligned with ours at Berkeley, so our institutional preference would be to use edX,” said Robert J. Birgeneau, the chancellor of Berkeley.

nicklovescode 14y ago
I was a bit surprised to see Berkeley as well. It was pitched as such a MIT & Harvard collaboration that I didn't get the sense other schools would be involved this early on. I'm glad they are offering classes here too though, EdX seems much more quality vs quantity. edit: woah, Dan!

idontlikebacon 14y ago

Anyone know when the actual platform will be open sourced?

dkroy 14y ago

Beautiful UI, I love it!

tikhonj 14y ago

I took CS188 (the AI course) recently and it was really great. Dan Klein is easily one of the favorite CS professors among the students--everyone really loves his class. He is, critically, a great educator. And, naturally, great fun. The lectures were certainly fun to attend even when the material was relatively easy. The online version only has half the material. However, this makes sense; the class is naturally divided into two parts. The first half was focused more on AI and search problems and the second part was more about machine learning. I suspect the only reason it is one class is because it has to fit in the semester system. Online, naturally, it's liberated from this constraint. Anyhow, I definitely recommend this for anyone interested in AI. And even if you're not interested in the field as much, it's a fun course and only lasts three months.