Continuations

I am a bit of a grinch around the holidays as I really don’t like getting more stuff. As a result I am also not all that excited about buying stuff for other people. Thankfully this year there is a terrific solution – gift cards from Skillshare and from Shapeways. With these you can give the gift of learning and discovery! What could be better? The recipients can of course take any class or buy any item but when you give both, they can first take the Introduction to 3D Printing on Skillshare ...

It was great fun to see XKCD take up the subject of Bayesian probability. That was a good reminder that it’s been a while since I taught my Skillshare class on the subject. And so I have added a new date for a lunch class on December 4th. As per usual, all proceeds go to Pencils of Promise. I have been asked if I am going to teach this class online as opposed to in person. Some day I may do that. But for now I really enjoy being together in a room. There is something very gratifying for me to...

I was on a panel for the wonderful iMentor organization earlier this week talking about the future of education. Every time I do that these days I emphasize that instead of talking about education we should focus on learning. Because the Internet is revolutionizing where, when and from whom we can learn. Secondary education in particular is where we are beginning to see the first signs of the dramatic shifts to come. Here are just a few examples of the amazing things that are happening. MIT, ...

Last week I had the pleasure of teaching my first Skillshare class. The subject was “Bayesian Probability and a Theory of Life” and is one I am very passionate about. I hope that I was able to convey some of that passion but I can say for sure that I learned a lot: First, the saying that “you don’t understand something until you have taught it a dozen or more times” is definitely true. In preparing for my class and teaching it, I realized that my own grasp of some of the concepts was not as g...

When I taught my Skillshare class on Bayesian Probability, I wound up spending a fair bit of time sharing my fascination with the foundations of probability. Why is there uncertainty in the world to begin with? How do we measure it? I have therefore decided to break that material out into its own class: Foundations of Probability. This class will be a romp through physics, philosophy, mathematics and more to examine where uncertainty comes from, how to measure it and how to think about it’s i...

We first invested in Skillshare almost five years ago. At the time the company was focused on in person classes. While many of those were as engaging as I had hoped, it was difficult to grow. Coming to an in person class is a big commitment, teachers didn’t have an audience and many had a hard time finding a place to teach and the model only has local network effects. Michael decided that starting with online classes was a better way to go and we supported that change. The first foray into on...

I wrote recently how programming is a great tool for learning because you haven’t really understood something until you can explain it to someone else (and in programming that someone else is the computer). Well yesterday in teaching my Skillshare class I got a good dose of that myself. I managed to completely botch my initial explanation of Bayes Theorem. How come? Because while I understand it reasonably well, I don’t understand it with every fiber of my brain and when I got myself into som...

Excited to announce our investment in Skillshare today. You can read some other posts about it here: Michael and Malcolm from Skillshare, Fred, and Jenna Wortham in the New York Times.

On July 11 at noon I will be teaching my Skillshare class on Bayesian Probability and a Theory of Life again. I am really looking forward to doing so for a bunch of different reasons. First, I really enjoyed teaching the first one and it’s been way too long. Second, I get to test out some brand new Skillshare features that are still in limited beta. Third, all the proceeds will go to Pencils of Promise. Fourth, the issue of fundamental misunderstanding of probability keeps popping up. For ins...