[ExI] sequestration, was: RE: standard form for creating a test, was: RE: humanities plus schmooze

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
...

>>... I took an artificial intelligence class from Stanford's Sebastian
Thune  online last fall, and found it excellent.  So did many 
> thousands of others.

>...I forget, were you on the advanced or basic track?  (I.e., graded or
ungraded?)

The very most basic track.  I was a casual student at best, but I got a lot
out of that course, not necessarily in AI.  I have taken other online
courses, but Thune's course caused me to recognize that in some important
ways, viewing the course online is not just equivalent to actually being
there, it is superior.  Reason: the AI course requires a number of complex
diagrams.  If you are in the course, you probably need to wait as Thune
draws them, but in video, it is done in stop motion fast forward.  So he
could cover the material faster, and furthermore, you don't have a scroll
bar in the meat world.  There were passages where I went back four or five
times, listening carefully to a particular point.  If I had been in class,
we would have one shot at that concept, then it is gone.  Class notes were
already written out right there in video, so there was no need to break
one's concentration copying diagrams.  So what Thune really taught me the
best was that in some important ways, online learning is better than being
there.

But furthermore...

If you actually go and live on campus, there are severe lifestyle
compromises along with that wonderful un-reproducible-at-home learning
environment: the total immersion in an alternate universe, for instance, not
to mention pretty girls everywhere, most of them single.  There are along
with this some severe compromises to the task of learning present at the
university as well, such as pretty girls everywhere, most of them single.
How the hell are we to concentrate when the testosterone pressure is
threatening to blast our brains out?

There is something else.  If you look at student housing, oy vey!  Locals,
go check out Stanford, which is really nice, high-end student housing.  Oh
my, it is expensive.  I look at the student housing I occupied in my own
misspent youth.  The house I occupied in undergrad was a very dangerous pile
of kindling, having been built in 1905, wiring added after the fact, cloth
insulated wiring, heated by an ancient oil-burner, a catastrophic fire-trap
in a dangerous neighborhood.  A brief stint in graduate school at the
University of Washington was an even worse house in a still more dangerous
neighborhood.  Fortunately I ran out of money and had to leave.

Even then, you need to be already a good student and have access to
financial resources to even get into these institutions of higher
girl-chasing. 

All of that is swept away for those students who have the self-discipline to
work the online free resources.  This will work well for some students.

spike