Two calculus courses starting soon

There are two Single Variable Calculus courses starting soon:

EDX - Calculus 1A starts in June 2 and split into 3 parts. Getting a verified certificate costs $100 for each part, or$300 in total. This course should be equivalent to MIT 18.01 course.

Coursera - Single Variable starts in May 22. Getting a verified certificate costs \$50.

When it comes to books, MIT recommends MIT - Calculus, Second Edition by Gilbert Strang

Machine Learning and a new site

I just finished taking the Machine Learning class from Coursera. Machine Learning started in the 80s, became more popular in the 90s and with the advent of powerful computers, is now a hot topic. The Machine Learning course came out in 2011, the New Yorker wrote about Machine Learning in 2012 and 2013. By now, everyone is talking about it. This morning I saw A Ted talk by Fei Fei Li about How we’re teaching computers to understand pictures

There are so many excellent online courses available these days. Scott Young took a whole CS degree just by taking MIT courses online. This inspires me to get back to learn Linear Algebra and Calculus. I spent some time researching which courses are available, and compiled them into a list. I also added the list of courses i’m planning to take during 2015.

When taking classes online there’s the question of how to take notes. I started taking notes on paper, until I stumbled upon Nathan Typanski’s blog. He talks about using Latex and Markdown which allow notes to be saved and viewed later. I found that writing formulas in Latex can be time consuming so I’m going back and fourth between taking screenshots of slides and using Latex.

If you are in San Francisco and taking online courses, check out the Colearning: Study Group for Online Courses meetup. Join us if you are around.