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Khan Academy: MORE Health and Medicine Content Now Available!
Post by Kyle Slinn, Khan Academy Nursing Fellow Over the last few months we’ve been working tirelessly to create new content. Today we’re adding 26 health conditions and 158 practice questions to our growing collection of health and medicine material. The new content covers diseases from the cardiovascular, respiratory, and hematologic systems, such as non-cyanotic heart diseases, lung cancer, and leukemia. Health science students can use this material as a supplement to their classes, and patients and their families can learn more about medical conditions relevant to them. Over the coming months we’ll continue to frequently release new content, so be sure to keep checking Khan Academy! Right now we’re looking for volunteers to help us write NCLEX-RN style questions. If you’d like to help us with this exciting project, send us an email. Here’s an example of a lesson on non-cyanotic heart diseases. You can check out the r…
Coursera: Singapore Government Builds Training Program Around Johns Hopkins University Data Science Specialization
Education is at the root of a healthy, progressive nation. The Singapore government is famous for its top notch public education system that has pioneered new education models and inspired other initiatives worldwide. Singapore is demonstrating its vision again today by launching a pilot training program in Data Sciences and Analytics using Coursera. The pilot is based on Johns Hopkins University’s Data Science Specialization. Data science has seen tremendous growth in recent years, and there is expected to be a major shortage of professionals in the field worldwide. McKinsey forecasts that there will be a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 data analytics professionals in the US by 2018. Singapore sees huge potential for utilizing open online education as a means to empower citizens with career skills in this high-demand industry. Here’s how Singapore’s Data Sciences and Analytics Training will work: The program will begin in August 2014 with an…
Saylor.org: How our community demographics stack against some MOOCs
On Friday, The Chronicle of Higher Education helpfully distilled some key metrics recently released by edX on their first sixteen MOOCs (8 Things You Should Know About MOOCs). We thought our community might be interested in how the Saylor Academy stacks up (favorably, we believe). We will look specifically at points 1-4; because of our ... Read More ...
Iversity: Great Scholartrips in History: Charles Darwin (I)
Many of the greatest discoveries have been made by voyaging beyond familiar surroundings. Inspired by the iversity Scholartrip, we are launching the blog series “Great Scholartrips in History”. These men and women did not have a laptop or great online courses to take along, but their journeys would contribute to the world of knowledge. Now […] The post Great Scholartrips in History: Charles Darwin (I) appeared first on iversity Blog.
Iversity: My experience taking “DNA-From Structure to Therapy”
by Sagar Aryal My curiosity about iversity first originated when I saw the course “DNA-From Structure to Therapy”. Since I was only interested in biology courses, the only choice left for me was to wait until April 25, the date for the official launch of the course. I had to wait nearly 5 long months […] The post My experience taking “DNA-From Structure to Therapy” appeared first on iversity Blog.
Udacity: Announcing nanodegrees: a new type of credential for a modern workforce
Introducing Nanodegrees In my role working with partners and external companies, people often ask me what differentiates Udacity’s culture. Out of everything I share with them, one thing stands out: our passion. There is a fire in the belly of every single person that works here at Udacity to create a better education and better opportunities for our students. It’s what defines our community. Lunch and hallway conversations revolve around how we can improve learning for the changing job landscape; what is most relevant to our students; how can we impact the world even in the smallest of ways with our courses. And throughout, we have worked with over 20 industry partners behind the scenes to help inform these conversations. As students, you’ve likely seen the results in courses built with the best experts from Google and Facebook to Cloudera and salesforce.com.Today, we’re bringing these partnerships further to the forefront as we introduce credentials built a…
Iversity: iversity Scholartrip: Where would you go?
Thinking about where you’d take a dream trip really gets the imagination going. It might even be hard to decide. Just close your eyes and let your finger fall somewhere on a world map. Middle of the Arctic Ocean? Hmm, maybe try again. To help you out, here’s what your fellow iversitarians had to say. […] The post iversity Scholartrip: Where would you go? appeared first on iversity Blog.
Khan Academy: Learn about the most famous music ever written
"You take the simplest musical idea. Four notes, and can you make a castle out of four notes? [Beethoven] was fearless….It is simply baffling how imaginative the composer is in using so little….This is the first time the symphony wakes up and is a dramatic essay." This is how Leon Botstein, conductor and President of Bard College, describes Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in a video from our new partner, the All Star Orchestra. And this discussion is only one of five videos on this symphonic masterpiece. In the remaining videos, Gerard Schwartz, conductor of the Emmy-winning All Star Orchestra, walks us through all four movements, even explaining what he is doing as he conducts many of the nation’s most accomplished musicians.We love the videos that discuss and explain the symphonies by Beethoven, Dvořák, Stravinksy, Ravel and others, but our favorites are probably those that focus on the individual instruments of the orchestra (everything from the viol…
Coursera: Välkomna! Lund University Joins Coursera as our First Swedish Partner!
Let’s “Välkomna” (or Swedish for “Welcome”) Lund University! Left to right: Rick Levin, Coursera CEO; Daphne Koller, Coursera Co-Founder and President; Professor Per Eriksson, Lund Vice-Chancellor Lund University is visiting the Coursera office today to kick off their induction into the Coursera partner community! As one of Scandinavia’s largest institutions for education and research, Lund University brings Courserians a wealth of knowledge in areas including Humanities, Law and Science. The university’s inaugural offerings cater to learners across disciplines: For the industrious, the “Introduction to European Business Law” course will provide learners with the fundamental tools they need to understand the laws that govern business in the European Union. This course is a solid foundation for anyone looking to understand the relationship between law and business in the EU. (Nov, 2014) For the environmentally conscio…
Iversity: Maximizing your learning from MOOCs: Sharing my personal experiences (III)
by Ankit Khandelwal This is the third part of a three-part series by Ankit Khandelwal to help you maximise your online learning based on his extensive MOOC experience. In this article, he will talk about how to apply online learning in the real world. If you haven’t been following, be sure not to miss out […] The post Maximizing your learning from MOOCs: Sharing my personal experiences (III) appeared first on iversity Blog.
Coursera: The Coursera App for Amazon Kindle Fire Launches Today!
Download the new Coursera App for Kindle Coursera believes mobile is the future of education and evidently our learners do, too. In less then six months, about one million learners downloaded our apps for Android and iPhone, enrolled in courses over 800,000 times and watched nearly seven MILLION lecture videos! Today, we are excited to announce the launch of the Coursera app for Amazon Kindle Fire. Now Coursera learners have a whole new way to take courses at anytime, anywhere. The Kindle app joins our apps for Android and iPhone in our exclusive mobile app portfolio. The new app for Kindle Fire allows learners to browse more than 600 courses, from 109 top universities and educational institutions in over 20 subject areas–from art history to veterinary sciences and beyond. Courses are across in 12 languages including over 500 in English, and over 100 in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Russian. The Coursera app for Kindle Fire supports these core features: Browsing courses…
Udacity: Sebastian Thrun: Lifelong Learning and Trustworthy Credentials
Growing need for lifelong learning and credentials Sebastian Thrun’s essay “Credentials that work,” published in McKinsey on Society in May 2014, discusses the 21st-century workforce’s growing need for lifelong education and credentials. McKinsey estimates that by 2020, there will be demand for 40 million high skilled workers. Sebastian Thrun believes that online education can help to bridge the gap between skills, trustworthy credentials, and jobs. Read on for his thoughts: There is a growing mismatch between the skills most people have and the skills they need to land a job. At a time when the world is experiencing record levels of youth unemployment, the number of vacant positions is steadily increasing. McKinsey estimatesthat by 2020, the global economy could face a shortfall of up to 40 million college-educated workers, or 13 percent of total demand for such workers.Developing economies could experience a shortage of 45 million workers with s…
Coursera: Four Proven Advantages of Online Learning (That are NOT the Cost, Accessibility or Flexibility)
Coursera believes that online courses complement and supplement traditional education (versus a common misconception online will “replace” traditional.) Our research shows that Coursera’s platform, when used concurrently with a traditional classroom setup, is ideal for “blended learning” (i.e., students watch lectures pre-class, then class-time focuses on interactive work and discussion.) Additionally, we agree with Brad Zomick of SkilledUp—an online learning aggregator—who acknowledges an online course “isn’t an alternative at all but rather a different path with its own rewards.” The advantages of Coursera and our apps for mobile were straightforward and conspicuous from the start: we’re free, open, and flexible to learners’ unique needs and style. Over the past two years, however, the evidence proves there are many more tangible benefits to open, online learning. In SkilledUp’s “The Advantages o…
Coursera: Restoring Course Access in Iran
Dear Courserians, Earlier this year, we had to restrict access to our courses for certain countries, in compliance with US export control regulations. We have appreciated the outpouring of empathy from our community of learners, as well as the support from the broader public as this issue has gained attention in the global forum. Since then, we’ve been working closely with governing authorities to navigate licenses and permissions, and today we’re happy to report that Iranian learners will now regain access to the majority of Coursera’s courses. At our last estimate, we’ve seen more than 20,000 visitors from Iran take part in our courses, so we’re glad to open our (digital) doors again to these learners, and hopefully many more! Sanctions still prohibit educational institutions and organizations from offering certain subjects, including those in advanced STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). To comply, we have identified those specif…
Saylor.org: Open Course Option in Business Administration Now More Open Than Ever
We are thrilled to share the news that Thomas Edison State College (TESC) has made two prior learning assessment (PLA) courses available under a Creative Commons Attribution-only license (CC-BY 4.0). These courses can be used by students hoping to demonstrate prior learning towards TESC credits and can be adapted by other parties and institutions interested in PLA ... Read More ...
Udacity: What is Programming?
What is programming? Let’s answer that questions by looking at how a computer is different from a toaster. Basically, we can sum up the concept of programming by looking at a simple machine, the toaster. The mighty toaster does one thing very well: it heats up bread. At the end of the day, however, that one function (heating bread) is pretty much all a toaster can do. Check out the full lesson here! The computer, on the other hand, is a much more complex machine and can do almost anything that we can tell it to do -- the key here being, we have to tell it what to do in a way that it understands what we want. This is where programs comes in! Programs are how we can communicate to computers what functions we want to be carried out. Programs are written in many programming languages, including Python, Java, Ruby, etc., and give the computer a precise sequence of steps to carry out. We can execute billions of these steps in one second. In Intro to Computer Scienc…
Udacity: Facebook Meme Hunting with Exploratory Data Analysis
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is an approach to data analysis for summarizing and visualizing the important characteristics of a data set. It can be used to get a quick, basic understanding of a data set.With EDA, we can explore and visualize interesting questions such as, “When do memes pop up in social networks?” Below, Facebook data scientist Lada Adamic explains how she uses EDA techniques to follow a meme’s Facebook presence over time. As Lada explains, a meme is an idea that replicates itself. In a social network, you may see a meme suggesting that you repost it to all of your friends. In this example, Lada is interested in the Moneybags meme, which has popped up on Facebook regularly over the years, and is specifically adapted to Facebook by suggesting that readers copy and paste to share with their friends. Lada wants to know how this Facebook-specific meme keeps recurring over time. A quick glance at a plot of the meme’s occurrence over…
Udacity: What is a web application?
Web applications, or web apps, are a huge part of the way the internet works! Facebook, Gmail (or any popular email website), and even Udacity’s classroom are examples of popular web apps. Let’s look at the big picture to see how web apps serve you dynamic web page content as you browse the internet. First, let’s look at the difference between dynamic and non-dynamic websites. When visiting non-dynamic websites, your web browser will make the initial HTTP requests to download the HTML, CSS, and other files needed to create the initial webpage that you want to browse. But, once the web page is loaded, the web browser or the website won’t send any more HTTP requests to the web server to ask updates. What you see is what you get…until you click the refresh button.On the other hand, dynamic web apps know how to build or update themselves on demand. More specifically, dynamic web apps often use JavaScript, Ajax, and/or long polling to make HTTP requests to…
Udacity: What is a programming class?
What is a class, in programming terms? You can think of it like a blueprint for a building! When you think of a building blueprint, what does it contain? Building blueprints hold standard pieces of information about a building, such as building height and the number of rooms. Blueprints can be modified to give instructions on building different types of buildings, such as an office with yellow walls and a residential complex with blue walls. Check out the full lesson here! A class is like a blueprint, in that it contains information about objects, such as size, color, and what the object can do (like move forward or turn right). A class, like a blueprint, can be used to create multiple instances of that class. In Programming Foundations with Python, learn more about classes and explore object oriented programming, a must-have technique that software engineers use to reuse and share code easily. In this interactive and self-paced course, you’ll build and practice your w…
Udacity: What is Data Wrangling?
When it comes to exploring data, you can learn quite a bit by diving into the numbers! Before you can really dive into data analysis, however, you may need to do some data wrangling, also known as data munging, to clean up your data. As you can see from the example in the video, you may need to work with a data set that is incomplete or has incorrect values. Looking at this table, you will see that there are missing values and incorrect values. That’s where data wrangling and data munging comes into the picture. Data wrangling is the art of dealing with and / or converting missing or ill-formatted data into a format that more easily lends itself to analysis. Check out the full lesson here! If you liked this concept overview, check out Intro to Data Science, a self-paced online course that surveys foundational topics in data science, including data manipulation, data analysis, visualizing data, and working with big data. http://blog.udacity.com/feeds/posts/de…