For a change, I'm not going to talk about my most recently completed Coursera course. Unfortunately, a long Christmas break and moving house (with the accompanying troubles of getting an internet connection sorted out) resulted in me falling behind on two Coursera courses I was taking part in so I regretfully un-enrolled from them both. I shall maybe write about those dropped courses and the reasons why they were dropped in another post.
This post is specifically about Udacity, another MOOC website that I was made aware of. Here are some of my thoughts on the site and what makes it different to my other experiences (Coursera), why I signed up, and what I think of it having now completed one of their courses.
What's It All About?
Really, rather than me try to explain Udacity's philosophy, mission statement, future plans, etc, it would be better if you go and check it out for yourself, here.
I have not been signed up to the site for long and have not experienced everything they have to offer but from what I've seen they offer a number of online courses (all free) mainly focussed on computing and mathematics. The courses are split into three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. This allows you to get an idea of how difficult each course will be for you and also allows you to guage whether you are challenging yourself with the course you have chosen.
The structure of the courses is similar to the courses I have studied with Coursera; that is, video lectures with quiz questions mixed in followed by homework exercises at the end of each unit. They also have a final exam at the end of the course that works in the same way as the homework exercises. Once a course has been completed you can download a certificate of completion for the course (a nice feeling when you can print something out to show your accomplishment).
How is it Different from Coursera?
Although both sites use a similar structure to the courses, there are some big differences between the two. Firstly, Coursera courses are run at specific times, much like a course in an institution, with a start and end date and the units being released to students on a weekly basis. Udacity, on the other hand, makes all of the units available from the start and leaves it up to the student to study them at their own pace. Personally, I like this approach as it means you don't have to try and find a set time commitment each week to complete the week's unit. If you happen to have a busy few weeks you won't fall behind with Udacity because you just carry on when you are ready. This was particularly useful in the last few months because of the problems with moving house mentioned above. I didn't need to drop my Udacity course because there was no time limit for completion.
The platform used by Udacity for delivering the courses also appears to be different to Coursera's, with videos being posted on YouTube and embedded in the site's UI. Despite the videos being hosted on YouTube, the Udacity team are still able to incorporate quiz questions within these videos by taking screenshots of the videos and creating a quiz page from that between videos.
The site is very clean and well presented. This year they updated the look of the site and made a lot of very good improvements to the UI, which makes it even nicer to use the site.
So, Why Did I Sign Up?
Well, I have said in the past that I like computing and programming, so when I saw the courses they had to offer I got very excited. The choices were amazing, I liked the look of pretty much all of the courses on offer, at every skill level. Because they all looked and sounded so interesting I decided to commit myself to attempt to complete every course they have to offer on the site. This may turn out to be an impossible task but I'm going to give it my best shot, so I started by signing up to the beginner's course 'Introduction to Computer Science'.
The aim of the course was to teach computer science and Python programming by working towards building a search engine. It was the thought of building a search engine that really caught my eye. When I signed up for it I had just started a Python programming course on Coursera so I was going to be learning Python twice but in the end I feel like I learned more because of the different way each site taught things and the order they were taught in. As it turns out, building a search engine isn't as daunting a task as it first appears. It seems the hardest part of the process is coming up with a name for your search engine (any suggestions?).
The videos were very well presented and the tutors were all very good at talking to camera and giving lectures. The quizzes and homework made sure that all of the units were understood, and the use of 'starred' questions (questions that are harder than the regular homework questions) were a great opportunity to push your skills and demonstrate how much you had learned. Some of the starred questions were very, very hard but completing them (sometimes after several days of trying) felt like such a great achievement I would surprise whoever happened to be sat near me at the time as I suddenly punch the air in excitement.
The site also has a very good discussion forum that is well organised with tags for questions so you can find relevant posts to whichever unit you happen to be working on at the time. I didn't post in the forums at all but I did find a lot of inspiration and help from the answers to other peoples' questions.
Final Thought
I really like Udacity. I like the way you can do the courses at your own pace, the huge selection of courses available at each skill level (as long as you want to focus on computing) and I like the way the courses are delivered. Although the challenge I have set myself - to complete every course they offer - seems daunting and damn near impossible, I look forward to giving it a go. One course down so far, and the next course up is 'Introduction to Physics' :)
