A lecture by Benoît B. Mandelbrot, here at my own institution! It was more than two decades ago, but I still recall my excitement when the announcement was made. Somehow and by some means fair or foul, colleagues had managed to entice Mandelbrot, the legendary originator of fractal geometry, to speak to us at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2012
“This is the real revolution of MOOCs”
Who said this, and to what was he referring? Continue reading
Guest post*: Distance learning myths
Distance learning, with its innumerable advantages, is catching on fast. When earning and learning can go hand in hand, why give up the opportunity to multitask to make the most of everything all at once? Continue reading
“Online lectures suck.” But that’s not the problem.
“Online lectures suck”. Who said that, and why?
The comment was made by a Stanford student concerning his experience with the Coursera course CS229a: Applied Machine Learning. Ben Rudolph is an on-campus, fee-paying ($50,000 p.a.) student who took the online class as part of his studies. It’s thus not surprising that he wouldn’t be particularly enthralled by having to watch a series of short videos rather than attend lectures and mix with his peers. Continue reading
Not everyone likes Khan Academy
Google supports it. Bill Gates loves it – so much so that he’s donated significant funds to it, and apparently his children are using it. It’s more popular that MIT’s Open Courseware (in terms of numbers of views, anyway). So who could possibly be unhappy with Khan Academy? Continue reading
Guest post*: The value of an online degree in the workplace
Just a few years ago, employers may not have thought much of online degrees or may not have known what to think of them. These days, online degrees are a lot more reputable. Prestigious universities such as Columbia in the U.S. and Oxford in England now offer online degree programs. Continue reading