Telling Students Expectations about the Course before hand

Think the following is a good idea to implement;

Students in the class are co-producers of class discussions and collective learning. For this to happen, class members need to listen carefully to one another and build on or critique prior comments. Many of you have worked in some of the companies we will be discussing or have worked with the relevant technologies. If past experience is any guide, each of you has unique insights and experiences that can help your classmates better understand the issues we are discussing. The discussion should be a conversation in which all participants recognize that they have an obligation to advance our understanding of the issue at hand. Your contributions to this learning process will be appraised in addition to the specific content that you contribute.

Because this course relies heavily on class participation for its success, class norms and expectations regarding class behavior are very important. Attendance at every class is required. Also, please come to class fully prepared to discuss the readings. I create a reading guide for each session with questions that you should review in advance and should be ready to answer.

Students who are thoroughly prepared for each session will benefit the most from this class. What's more, they add to the learning of their classmates. Hence, if you don't feel comfortable with these expectations, then this is not a good course for you to take this semester.

Free IT Courses at Stanford

Introduction to Databases

What background do I need?
The course does not assume prior knowledge of any specific topics, however a solid computer science foundation -- a reasonable amount of programming, as well as knowledge of basic computer science theory -- will make the material more accessible

Machine Learning

What are the pre-requisites for the class?
You should be able to program in at least one programming language and have a computer (Windows, Mac or Linux) with internet access.

Artificial Intelligence

The Economics of Information Technology

Interesting course from MIT OCW ;The Economics of Information: Strategy, Structure and Pricing;
Shapiro, Carl, and Hal Varian. Information Rules: A Strategic to the Network Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780875848631.

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Adam Saunders. Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology is Reshaping the Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780262013666.

Saloner, Garth, and A. Michael Spence. Creating and Capturing Value: Perspectives and Cases on Electronic Commerce. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. ISBN: 9780471410157.

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Brian Kahin, eds. Understanding the Digital Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780262523301.

Liebowitz, Stan. Re-Thinking the Network Economy: The True Forces that Drive the Digital Marketplace. New York, NY: American Management Association, 2002. ISBN: 9780814406496.

Varian, Hal, Joe Farrell, and Carl Shapiro. The Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780521605212.

Eric Mazur on Teaching

In 1991, Mazur began designing an instructional strategy for teaching called peer instruction. In 1997, he published a book called Peer Instruction: A User's Manual which provides details on this strategy.

Peer Instruction (PI) has been found to be more beneficial than class-wide discussion or lecture. In fact, according to an article in the March/April 2009 edition of Complexity, over 90% of instructors who have tried PI plan to continue to use it and incorporate it more into teaching.[1] The seating arrangement plays an important role in the outcome of this method. For example, when low-performing students are seated in the front, their chance to do better increases. Meanwhile, the results of high-performing students who are seated in the back are not affected. In addition, when high-performing students are seated in the outer four corners of the classroom, the performance of the class as a whole increases.

Want to study AI under Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig

Hurry up and sign up before the deadline.

Stanford has been offering portions of its robotics coursework online for a few years now, but professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig are kicking things up a notch (okay, lots of notches) with next semester's CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. For the first time, you can take this course, along with several hundred Stanford undergrads, without having to fill out an application, pay tuition, or live in a dorm