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Coursera: Update on Course Accessibility for Students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria
Providing access to education for everyone has always been at the core of Coursera’s mission, and it is with deep regret that we have had to make a change to our accessibility in some countries. Certain United States export control regulations prohibit U.S. businesses, such as MOOC providers like Coursera, from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera’s course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries, with the exception of Syria (see below). Our global community is incredibly valuable to us and we remain committed to providing quality to education to all. During this time, we empathize with the frustrations of students who are affected by this change and we have made it a top priority to make rapid progress toward a solution. What will happen to students attempting to access Coursera from sanctioned countries? As of…
Khan Academy: Why does biodiversity matter for childhood leukemia?
Have you ever wondered what all those plants, animals, microbes and fungi do for us humans? Today we’re very happy to release the beginnings of our first collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences (CAS): a new series of tutorials on biodiversity. In the tutorial on ecosystem services you can find out about the Rosy Periwinkle, a plant from Madagascar that creates chemicals used to treat childhood leukemia. You’ll also find explanations of how ecosystems work and explorations of biodiversity hotspots around the world. The great news is that we’re just getting started. Exploring, explaining and sustaining biodiversity is at the core of the mission of the scientists at the CAS. We’re looking forward to sharing many more tutorials in the months to come. In the meantime, check out this great video that explains the story of the Rosy Periwinkle!
Coursera: Become a Designer-in-Residence at Coursera through Bridge
This blogpost is written by the Coursera Design team on a new partnership opportunity to become a designer at Coursera! Today, we are excited to announce our partnership with Designer Fund, a community of designers on a mission to help designers create businesses with meaningful impact. Through their Bridge program, we’re opening up applications for experienced designers who want to make an immediate impact on the Coursera experience. At Coursera we believe that something special happens when you bring a small team of designers together to tackle meaningful problems. We still have an array of products that are yet to be conceptualized, and our product designers get to create them from the ground up. In doing so, they work closely with a cross disciplinary team of engineers, product managers, and business partners to bring Coursera’s vision of a world-class education for everyone to life. Potential projects our designers-in-residence will have the opportunity to work o…
Udacity: New Course: Intro to Data Science
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Learn what it takes to become a data scientist! Demand for data science skills is increasing rapidly across all industries; keep your skill set competitive with our Data Science track. Udacity’s newest course, Intro to Data Science, is launching on Wednesday, February 5, 2014, and you can pre-enroll for the course today. In this course, you’ll survey the foundational topics in data science: Data manipulation Data analysis with statistics and machine learning Data communication with information visualization Data at scale -- working with big data http://blog.udacity.com/feeds/posts/default…
Saylor.org: U.S. and Student PIRGs Report on Affordable Textbooks
The U.S. PIRG Education Fund and The Student PIRGs yesterday released a report on “Fixing the Broken Textbook Market”, based on a survey of students on 150 college campuses. Among the report’s findings: Students will risk poor grades rather than purchase assigned textbooks The price of textbooks can produce a “ripple effect” on a student’s ... Read More ...
Udacity: Jason Learned OO Programming with Udacity Coaches
Meet Jason! Meet Jason! Jason is one of the Udacity students that we put first, and he just finished Intro to Programming in Java with the help of our awesome Coaches. Jason studied Artificial Intelligence & Cybernetics at The University of Reading. During his time at University, Jason took an object oriented programming course in C++ but never felt like he gained a firm conceptual grasp of object oriented programming. When Udacity offered Intro to Programming in Java, along with our Coach program to help students learn with one-on-one tutoring, Jason signed up to take another crack at learning object oriented programming!Here’s Jason’s experience in his own words: Why did you decide to take Intro to Programming with Java?I was very excited to give OO programming another try! I already knew how interactive and practical Udacity courses are: you learn a little concept through watching the videos and then do, do, do. You go back at your own pace in your own ti…
CourseSites: ネイルサロンも併用の美容室オレンジポップ
ビルの２Fにある店舗は日当たりがよく人の目を気にすることのない 心地よい空間が広がっています。 １５席という大型店舗ではありますが、スタッフがみんな明るく 元気な方たちなので、初めての方でも安心して足を運ぶことができます ... [Read more...]…
CourseSites: 人気美容室カーサが西葛西にオープン！！
新宿や池袋にも店舗を持つ、男女ともに人気の美容室【Ｃａｓａ】が西葛西にオープンしました。 アットホームな店内と明るいスタッフがたくさんいる感じの良いお店です。 カーサのスタイリストはみんな明るく楽しい方たちばかりなので、 ... [Read more...]…
Udacity: Data Innovation at Udacity
Yesterday, Udacity proudly joined the Center for Data Innovation in celebrating Data Innovation Day. We believe that big data and data science are crucial to understanding and optimizing our world! Increasingly, our modern world feels the impact of data innovation and data literacy -- this is highlighted in growing numbers of jobs involving data science. Source: UMUC At Udacity, we offer the tools to help you learn to harness the power of big data! In our Data Science & Big Data track, which we developed with industry experts including Cloudera and MongoDB, you’ll learn to gather, manipulate and analyze big data. How does big data affect your life and your work? How do you use big data -- or how do you want to use big data? Start learning in our Data Science track today. See you in class! http://blog.udacity.com/feeds/posts/default…
Coursera: A Trans-Institution Specialization on Mobile Cloud Computing with Android
This blogpost is written by Adam Porter of University of Maryland, Douglas C. Schmidt and Jules White, from Vanderbilt University about their Android Specialization on Coursera! Every day, hundreds of millions of people around the world use handheld devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to run software applications that: direct them to the places they want to go, securely provide information about the people, locations, goods, and services near them, and let them interact with the people they care about and do business with. So, what do all these applications have in common? Increasingly, they rely on a powerful trio of computing technologies, collectively known as mobile cloud computing, where applications are designed to run on smart mobile devices, connected to powerful computing services that are accessible over commodity wireless networks. So where can students go to learn how to program mobile cloud computing applications and services? That’s easy! Through the Cour…
Udacity: Sebastian Thrun: Closing the Job Skills Gap – One Class at a Time
Today marks a new first for us. You might notice this on our home page. Today we are starting two new full-service classes, developed jointly with Cloudera and Salesforce. These innovative, industry-informed classes feature interactive coaches that guide students every step of the way from the time they sign on, to studying for lessons and quizzes, to working on a project for class completion. Upon completion, students receive certificates recognized by the Open Education Alliance. Our new courses address the widening job skills gap in the US and around the world. McKinsey estimates that by the year 2020, there will be 85 million vacant job openings for skilled or partially skilled individuals. At the same time, we face record unemployment around the globe, with youth unemployment rates exceeding 50 percent in countries like Greece and Spain. Our courses provide a path to employment. They convey skills and knowledge deemed critical by leading tech companies with a certif…
CourseSites: ショックを受けると髪が白くなる？ってホント？
鏡を見ていた時に、ふとキラっと光る白い毛が‥。「私もそろそろ歳かしら？」 そう思ったとき、ショックを受けてしまいますよね。私もまだ２０代なんですが、 この前髪の毛に白髪を発見して「ガーン」と落ちこんでいました。 ところで ... [Read more...]…
Udacity: Peter Norvig: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
Peter Norvig, computer scientist and Director of Research at Google, teaches the Udacity programming courses Intro to Artificial Intelligence and Design of Computer Programs. He wrote a great piece, Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, with advice for programming students on how to master programming. We love the excerpt below, where Peter shares his recipe for programming success: deliberative, sustained practice; learning by doing; and collaborating with other programmers on projects. Read the full post here. Start your journey to teach yourself programming in ten years with Udacity’s interactive, online programming courses. So You Want to be a Programmer Here's my recipe for programming success: Get interested in programming, and do some because it is fun. Make sure that it keeps being enough fun so that you will be willing to put in your ten years/10,000 hours. Program. The best kind of learning is learning by doing. To put it more technically, "the maxim…
Saylor.org: Thanks for the pictures, Internets.
This blog has been pretty quiet lately — our apologies (or maybe “you’re welcome”…take your pick). Last week was “Copyright Week“, at least according to some; despite being late to the party, we wanted to say thanks to JD Hancock for thanking us for our editing and re-using his photo. For free. Without asking. We ... Read More ...
Coursera: Coursera Specializations: Focused Programs in Popular Fields
Today we’re excited to announce Specializations, a new type of program that allows students to develop mastery in a specific subject. Specializations take the learning experience beyond one course, offering multi-course series in cutting-edge fields from top institutions in the world. The Specializations cover popular topics such as Data Science, Cybersecurity, Android Development, and Foundations of Teaching. Every Specialization will culminate with a unique capstone project or exam that allows students to apply what they’ve learned to relevant, real world scenarios. Students completing the series will receive a Specialization Certificate verifying their completion of a top-notch academic program. “The knowledge and skills needed to master mobile cloud computing applications are far more complex than any one instructor could ever hope to cover in a single course,” said Doug Schmidt, professor of computer science and of computer engineering at Vanderbilt, an…
Coursera: The End of the 1 Year Journey...
Editor’s note: Jonathan Haber is a Courserian who is taking classes for 12 months on Coursera to experiment with a project of his called “Degree of Freedom”. He is guest blogging on our site throughout this next year to keep us up-to-date on his progress! I just wrapped up my Degree of Freedom One Year BA and wanted to send everyone at Coursera a huge thank you for making my free learning project possible. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks (shaved this time) to provide some final tips on what a year on the MOOC front lines can teach my fellow learners. Here are the links to each of the courses I mentioned in the video of my favorite courses from this year: 1. Duke University’s Think Again course: https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain 2. Stanford’s Einstein Course: https://www.coursera.org/course/einstein 3. Wesleyan University’s Modern Post Modern Course:https://www.coursera.org/course/modernpostmodern 4. Wesleyan University&rsquo…
Udacity: Work at Udacity, Help Students Succeed
At Udacity, our students come first! We’re growing fast and looking for talented folks to join our Course Management Team, where you’ll work directly with our students to help them succeed. Our students come first! You may know us from the chat window where our Coach team is available to help you through challenges in one-on-one tutoring sessions. Students also hear from us as we give feedback on projects in the full course experience. We are passionate about helping students learn, and we thrive on mentoring our students to success. Every day, we connect with students from all over the world who are learning how to program. Using technology to extend our pedagogical reach, we help students grasp abstract concepts, learn challenging material, and build exciting projects. Our work is fast-paced and filled with a variety of intellectual challenges. We combine meaningful, personal interaction with technological expertise as we actively support our students in…
Khan Academy: Khan Academy launches new college prep initiative
There is a big issue in the education system today. Two out of every three students are not prepared for college level math courses and over half of all 4-year college students do not graduate within 6 years. These students often take on a lot of debt and can’t finish their degrees. Worst of all, they then miss out on today’s most exciting careers because they lack the skills. “2 out every 3 students are not prepared for college level math courses” Given our mission to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere, we’ve been hard at work to increase our college prep content. So, when the White House called (wait, did you say the White House?!) to invite Khan Academy to help students in Higher Ed reach their potential, how could we say no? We had already been creating new math and college prep materials, and saw the opportunity to make an even bigger impact. Today, Sal was honored to discuss our higher education efforts at the White House a…
Udacity: Sebastian Thrun: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today
Today, marks the first day in class for Georgia Tech's new online Master’s degree in Computer Science program, which Georgia Tech, Udacity, and AT&T have jointly developed. This is a very big day for us. Udacity's mission is to democratize higher education. With this program, we are making a top-notch computer science education available to a much broader group of students. And we are doing this at a price point of less than 20% of an on-campus education. I believe this is a watershed moment for students around the world.We are very pleased with the application numbers for this new program. A total of 2,360 students applied within the 3-week application period. This is about 75% more than normally apply for the on-campus degree over the duration of an entire year. Of this pool, 375 have been accepted and start today and several others have deferred admission. Most striking were the demographic differences. Whereas the average age of the on-campus student is 24, it is…
Udacity: Update on Udacity CS344: Intro to Parallel Programming
Udacity and NVIDIA launched Intro to Parallel Programming (CS344) in February 2013. The course is geared towards students who have experience in C and want to learn the fundamentals of massively parallel computing. Taught by John Owens, a professor at UC Davis, and David Luebke, senior director of graphics research at NVIDIA, CS344 offers 30+ hours of instruction, videos and problem sets. As we begin the new year, we decided to check in with Dave for his perspectives on parallel programming: Dave, what is parallel programming and why is it important? Modern computers don’t perform computations one at a time, or “serially.” Rather, they are designed to run many computations concurrently, or “in parallel.” This allows them to do much more work in a given amount of time, and deliver results considerably faster. The past decade has seen a tectonic shift from serial to parallel computing. Once the domain of exotic supercomputers, parallel pro…