A Surge in Learning the Language of the InternetI read an article yesterday from the New York Times highlighting the surge in computer language. It detailed free online computer courses from Stanford University. So out of curiosity, I checked it out. Come to find out that in the Fall of 2011, Computer Science and Engineering Professors at Stanford University developed three experimental online courses and offered them free to the public. The results were 58,000 students enrolled. When I visited the site it had grown from three online courses to eight while there are an additional seven currently under development. I am enrolled in two of the classes. The first three were Introductions to Artificial Intelligence, Introduction to Databases, and Machine Learning; I am currently enrolled in Model Thinking and Computer vision. This is just an example of the range of computer courses that are available form www.coursera.org which has grown to include not only Stanford University, but also The University of Michigan and The University of California, Berkeley. In addition to the universities, an independent website has been developed by a group of Roboticists, one of which served as the participating Professor for Stanford University, named www.udacity.com and they are offering computer science courses ranging from building a website to cryptography.
