Fwd: Feedback on AI class

[Tennessee Leeuwenburg]

Following Tim's lead, I thought I'd share the following.

I got a lot out of the course, and I think my final subject grade will come out about 93.5%. What an amazing experience.

Cheers,

-T

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tennessee Leeuwenburg <tleeuw...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 12:29 PM
Subject: Feedback on AI class
To: feed...@ai-class.com

Thank you SO MUCH for running this course. I have always wanted to learn from the best, and it is really wonderful to do so. Learning now is so much more enjoyable than in my uni days, with resources like the Khan Academy readily available to cover off knowledge gaps and learn at my own pace.

I used the theory I learned to implement the following AI for playing rock, paper, scissors. Try to beat it to 20! http://www.rpscontest.com/entry/407001

It uses a highly simple sequence predictor with LaPlace smoothing and a k-value of 6 with a Markov assumption :)

What Worked:

 -- Video delivery of classes worked beautifully, as did the in-lecture quiz structure. This was a winner, keep this approach.

 -- Using aiqus and reddit for forums. Much better to have this than the burden of managing your own forums. 

 -- The quizzes for assessment. I really learned my material this way.

 -- The "office hours". It's a huge buzz being taught by such high-profile and well-qualified individuals. You KNOW you are being

    taught by the best, and increasing the sense of shared experience is huge.

Some suggestions for improvements:

  -- Some people would be willing to pay for tutors. There may be an opportunity for tutors to have an official channel.

  -- Programming exercises. Simple coding exercises to produce the answers to complex questions, or perhaps that

     need to pass some supplied automated tests (with a test set of tests applied by the lecturers). I didn't see what they

     did in ml-class for programming exercises

  -- Sometimes, you want a canonical answer to a forum question. An official "course tutor" could answer upvoted questions.

  -- Why not integrate these videos into Khan Academy? The other classes (e.g. ml-class) could also be integrated also.

  -- Include a quiz on last week's lectures each week, to force people to improve their learning

Suggestions for additional / extension courses:

  -- I would definitely love to participate in more advanced courses, even online research, if available. I'd love to learn more. I never want to stop!

--
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Tennessee Leeuwenburg
http://myownhat.blogspot.com/
"Don't believe everything you think"

[Adam A. Ford]

BTW,
You may have heard that Sebastian Thrun who taught the AI class was so enamored by the idea of online classes that he gave up his tenured position @ Stanford to start teaching online:
http://www.udacity.com/

I have my doubts that Norvig will follow suit any time soon.

Plug: Hope you can all make it to the H+ Summit @ Melbourne.  The speaking lineup is not yet fully defined, but we have Aubrey de Grey, Tim Josling, and a tentative few including Max More, Natasha Vita-More, Randal Koene, Robert Shepherd, Greg Adamson,  Meredith Doig ....  Also need volunteers so if any of you are interested in helping please let us know.

Kind regards,

Adam A. Ford
Singularity Summit Australia Coordinator
H+ Australia, H+ @ Melbourne Summit Coordinator

Mob: +61 421 979 977 | Email:  tec...@gmail.com

SinginstAU | Singularity Summit (AU) | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube | Singinst media (US) | H+ @ Melb Summit (AU)

“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them” – Albert Einstein
 
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