Andrew Parker - The Gong Show: ML-Class.Org

November 1, 2011

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ML-Class.Org

I’m four weeks into the free and open Machine Learning class taught by Andrew Ng (Stanford Computer Science professor). The class is hosted at ml-class.org.

This class is the future. I’m completely blown away by the quality of every part of it: The material scales nicely in difficulty. The user experience of the site is terrific. Andrew Ng does a great job of keeping the videos short, but still delivering a strong lesson with each dose. The programming assignments teach you the core lessons without all the cruft and overhead of writing real-world code. The Q&A community feature is active and helpful; people answer questions with a solid, positive attitude. Everything is free… the programming environment is Octave which is free, open source software, the lectures and grading procedures have essentially zero marginal cost (they’re all automated), so the course can scale nicely to hundreds of thousands of users.

The best feature: 1.2x video speed! You can play the lectures at slightly-faster-than-normal speeds to cruise through easier material at a quicker pace. All Khan Academy videos should offer 1.2x playback speeds right away, it’s an excellent feature.

If you’re working on an education startup, take notice of what’s going on at ai-class.org, ml-class.org, and db-class.org. These classes have created a new set of expectations for what learning online can be.

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