Coffee Break Episode 4: Psychology and Sea Lions

Check out this week's Coffee Break!

We're excited to show you how exciting learning psychology can be. This week we took a trip to Moss Landing Marine Laboratories where Dr. Jenifer Zeligs introduced us to Cali and Sake. Where we were able to explore Psychology concepts such as learning and conditioning with sea lions.

The class offers way more than just sea lions and we'll explore many concepts of human behavior and how the brain works. You'll learn about memory, perception, sensation and things such as mental disorders and treatment.


If you're interested in learning more, today's your last day to sign up for this class for credit. You can enroll on our college credit page.

Udacity at Google I/O

This year, the Google I/O and Google Chrome teams were kind enough to invite Udacity to participate in their Developer Sandbox at I/O. On Friday, fellow Udacians Stuart, Chris and I manned a Udacity booth equipped with a new mini lesson to show everyone what Udacity’s all about.

Martin Conway, developer of Utactica and winner of an I/O ticket in our HTML5 Game Development contest, makes an appearance! Colt, Peter and I were psyched to meet Martin.

I’ve been trying to think of the right way to describe our experience at I/O, and I keep coming back to the same phrase:

Blown away.

Seriously, the response Udacity got from developers at I/O was nothing short of astonishing. We were mobbed by people all day, we had to tag-team getting food and drinks around lunch time because there was no way we could leave our space.

As to the actual response from developers at our station, we got a wide range of people and opinions. A huge number of current Udacity students stopped by to give us the thumbs up and ask about our future plans. We had a number of people who had never heard of Udacity before. Interestingly, I felt like these people left with more genuine interest in Udacity and a change in the educational landscape than anyone else.

Finally, we had quite a few folks stop by to say they didn’t understand how we were different from any of the other education provider, like Coursera, edX, Codecademy, Codeschool, etc. I really enjoyed these conversations! It let me open up a bit more about the differences in philosophy and pedagogy between some of these different approaches, describe what was unique about Udacity, what we get right, and what we need to improve.

At the end of the day, my I/O takeaway was clear:

Everyone wants education to change. No one is happy with how the education system currently works, and people are eager to hear what we’re doing to make that happen. We were grateful and, quite frankly, humbled by the enthusiasm we met with, and we couldn’t have been happier to talk to everyone there!

Sean Bennett

Inside Udacity: Developing Intro to Programming

Hi, I’m Sara! I work at Udacity as a course manager, meaning I’m often on the Udacity end of the conversation when students check in with questions about our courses. I’ve also recently donned a course developer hat, meaning I work with Professor Cay Hortsmann and Cheng-Han Lee to develop our new Intro to Programming course. 

Developing a course at Udacity is pretty exciting. It generally goes like this: 

Brainstorming, scripting & writing sample code

Initially, Cheng-Han, Cay, and I brainstorm cool examples of things you can program, like drawing a graph of your friends. Next, we write lesson scripts and test out all the example code.

Filming

When we film the videos, I always find that the code has a mind of its own. I plan some mistakes so students can see the process of reasoning about bugs, but sometimes I make new mistakes while filming. I guess those ones will be more authentic :) Recognizing and fixing bugs is a critical skill. Bugs are a constant reality of programming, and they are conquerable.

Cay and I in the recording studio

Editing

When I finish recording a video, I hand it to our talented video editors, who edit the footage so that it flows well and feels like a finished product.

Coding quizzes & assignments

The polished footage is uploaded to the site where Cheng-Han codes all the quizzes and programing assignments. Without this last critical step, all the content would be just another lecture. At Udacity, we plan the course around the questions, because when you make mistakes while answering questions, your brain grows.

Cheng-Han coding in stealth mode 

I love being a Udacity course developer for Intro to Programming because I believe that very soon, if it hasn’t happened already, we will realize that programming is as important for careers as reading and writing is. It’s something you can use to communicate with the world, and to build your ideas into realities.

More and more, the world needs people to learn CS, and we’re struggling to keep up with educating all of the students who want to learn. I came to Udacity because if I build good content here, potentially thousands of people can use it to learn to program. Working at Udacity, I am able to make a difference by reaching students at a scale I never dreamed of. If you want to take the course to earn college credit with San Jose State University, you have three more days until enrollment closes on Friday, May 24th.

Sara Tansey

Udacity Course Manager & Developer

CS101 Spanish Study Group

Today, we’re welcoming two Udacians, Dennis and Edwin from Guatemala City, back to the blog for a special announcement.

We first met Dennis and Edwin when they traveled from Guatemala to attend the HTML5 Game Development study group hosted by Udacity and Google. They were inspired by the study group, which students could attend in person or online via YouTube livestream, and they had a very Udacious idea - to bring similar CS101 study groups to Spanish-speaking students.

Dennis and Edwin built a Spanish-language study group series that follows in the footsteps of the inaugural HTML5 San Francisco study group. They offer a hybrid in-person and online study group to accompany Udacity’s CS101 lessons.

Hard at work!

Interested? The study group will start on June 4, and will meet for one hour per week for six consecutive weeks. Dennis and Edwin will kick off each week with a short lesson recap, and afterwards will open the floor to questions. To submit and vote on questions for the study group, visit the study group forum.

Students can fill out the RSVP form to attend the Guatemala City study group in person. The group has room for about 50 students to attend in person, and 25 folks have already RSVP’d, so hurry to RSVP. If you hear back from Dennis and Edwin, you’ll have a standing invitation to the study group.

Testing the filming equipment

You can reserve your virtual spot by subscribing to the Livestream event, and stay connected in the Google+ community and on Facebook. Questions? You can also tweet to Dennis and Edwin at @denniszelada and @mcinside.

Huge thanks to Dennis and Edwin for expanding CS101 hybrid live/livestreamed study groups to Guatemala. We also want to thank our Udacious translators for making it possible to learn CS101 with Spanish captions!

Sebastian Thrun Takes Coffee Break to Discuss Online Masters Degree

Welcome to this week’s Coffee Break! 

It’s been a big week for us at Udacity, what with our HTML5 Game Development certificate program launch, announcing our collaboration with Georgia Tech and AT&T to offer an Online Masters Degree in Computer Science, and debuting our I/O course.

Whew, that’s a full week! The buzz around these new developments has been tremendously encouraging -- thank you for all of your support in these new adventures.

For this week’s Coffee Break installment, Sebastian talks with fellow Udacian, Clarissa, about the Online Masters Degree, as well as course certificate alternatives for students who aren’t interested in the entire degree.

For more thoughts from Sebastian, be sure to read his blog post reflecting on MOOCs, empowerment and education. 

Happy Friday and Happy Coffee Break!

10 Reasons to Take Your Education Online

Happy Friday, Udacity! 

Millions of people are getting inspired by a new era of online education, and we here at Udacity are absolutely thrilled to watch empowered students advance their education and their careers with our free, online courses. Virtual classrooms are filling up all over the interwebs!

We are so jazzed about online learning that we decided to make a list for everyone who needs a few extra reasons to take their education online. We polled the office and this is what we came up with!

Here’s one of the reasons: There’s no such thing as being late to your laptop.

This man has never been late in his life. Only early. 

We care deeply about the future of education and believe that higher education is a basic human right -- Udacity’s mission is to bring accessible, affordable, engaging and highly effective education to the world. 

We also believe in having fun, so stay tuned for more lists.

Udacity at Google I/O

Udacity is really excited to be participating in Google I/O this year at their Developer Sandbox, and we’ve created a custom mini lesson to give I/O attendees -- and anyone else who is curious about what it’s like to learn with Udacity -- a taste of a simple lesson.

Figure out which philosophers are thinking, waiting, and eating

In this short, 10 minute “lesson,” we’ll walk you through solving a brain teaser. Share this with your friends and challenge yourselves to see who can solve this puzzle about philosophers and chopsticks today!