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Comment by blagie | Hacker News Reader

I'll simplify.

In 2023, there are much more effective ways to teach computer science than tossing lecture videos up on a web site with homework assignments. MIT pioneered that in the nineties with OCW. It was a good idea at the time.

Now, we have ways of doing online learning which are an order of magnitude more engaging, and lead to much better learning outcomes.

I would never use the Berkeley stuff with kids. I might use it to help inspire what I do with kids. I would use many of the more animated, interactive things with kids, if available. I was asking if anyone has done that. If not, I'm surprised no one has done it.

To be clear, I'm not dissing Berkeley for what they did here. Posting this sort of thing is great. It's just a tiny fraction of the impact of a real learning experience.

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Hi, I used to TA for 61B. This isn’t an online course though. You’ll notice a small detail at the top “245 Li Ka Shing” which is the lecture hall used.

Granted most students don’t attend because the lectures are diligently posted online on the website.

What’s not captured on the website are twice a week discussion small groups where one TA to 20-30 students work through problems in a group setting. There’s a lot of collaboration and interactivity here. Then there’s the once a week lab, where about 20-30 students go to a computer room and go through an interactive lab exercise.

Then, there are the projects. Every CS 61ABC course is defined by their projects. These projects are the opposite of traditional learning. And 61B has done some of the most innovative projects I’ve seen in an educational context. For example, we had one semester where students grouped up and designed a rogue-like from scratch. There was a minimum rubric, but students were given the time to be extra creative, and we definitely saw that shine. It was a nightmare to grade though, but it was experimental and cool.

So this website is just a small fraction of what the students experience. It’s really just a schedule + lecture directory.

One of the lectures is actually "The Design of CS61B" which explains a lot about how the course is structured and how it has evolved!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dWqymxQxZrMWYl76GfJo...

In my mind this is the most interesting aspect of this course website - the meta reflection aspect.

I got that, and it's great that it's public. That has a lot of impact, a lot of it auxiliary.

The key question is suitability-to-purpose. Without the small group work and the collaboration, a web site like this isn't what I'd like to point strangers on the internet wanting to learn algorithms. Without that, something more is needed. Two decades ago, we were figuring out what that "something more" ought to be so learners can be successful independently online. Today, we know.

I'm not asking Berkeley to do that additional work. It's a ton of work (probably a half-million dollars in human time). I'm just surprised no one has done it.

To make an analogy, if someone needs a car, giving them plans to build one is less than constructive. But that doesn't take away the merits of having an open-source car. It's just a different purpose.

That’s fair. I don’t think our 61B is optimized for public consumption nor is it designed to do so. I would not recommend learning DS by just watching the lectures posted on this website. But making this website public gives people at least the option, even if it is subpar. So I think we’re in agreement here!

Well, Khan Academy has this: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science

> It's just a tiny fraction of the impact of a real learning experience.

Well, it's mostly intended for their students. The access is just open. It seems to work well for their students.

> MIT pioneered that in the nineties with OCW

It was early 2000s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCourseWare#History

> The OpenCourseWare movement started in 1999 when the University of Tübingen in Germany published videos of lectures online for its timms initiative (Tübinger Internet Multimedia Server).[1] The OCW movement only took off with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University[2] in October 2002.

> Now, we have ways of doing online learning which are an order of magnitude more engaging, and lead to much better learning outcomes.

I'm not sure that's true.

> I would never use the Berkeley stuff with kids. I might use it to help inspire what I do with kids. I would use many of the more animated, interactive things with kids, if available.

You want to teach Data Structures and Algorithms theory to kids? With the exception of the most capable kids, I don't think that's realistic in any format.

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