Nadine Arendse writes in the IT Web Innovations web site on Professor quits Stanford to teach online. Professor Sebastian Thrun appears to have given up a good position at Stanford to teach on-line at Udacity.com. Udacity is a free online university with a mission to “change the future of education” - now there's a novel thought?
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| Image link to udacity.com. |
Nevertheless - the idea of a university education being provided on-line with the best possible lecturers and content being available is a very appealing idea. Who would not like each module to be delivered by an expert in a particular field who is also an excellent teacher. Better that your average College lecturer (like me)?
According to Arendse, Professor Thrun had an audience of 160,000 for a class on Artificial Intelligence, making use of 2,000 volunteers to translate the class into different languages. As Arendse also states - "Thrun also proudly pointed out that he was teaching more students than all the students of Stanford.
Professor Thrun is a lucky guy who can give up such a prestigious position as a lecturer in Stanford University to do this - I envy him. I'd love to expand my own YouTube channel to do more on-line teaching. The trouble is, I am too scared to give up my own position to do so - Thrun must have some money behind him.
Anyway- I wish this venture well, and I confidently expect that this will be the third-level version of the Khan Academy. Watch out for Udacity!
You would be a massive loss to NCI if you ever left Eugene. You are an excellent lecturer and truly one of the good guys.
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