SPEAKER 1: I've long considered
the CS50x in particular
to be the master class when
it comes to like teaching
programming in an online
kind of environment,
and I'm sure that a lot of work has
gone into getting it up to that level.
And I'd like you to share with
us some of the insights that you
had going through developing this
online course and all of the material
and what, perhaps, other
educators could take away
from it to improve their own materials.
SPEAKER 2: Well, thank
you, first of all.
I can say that it's been very
incremental over the years, what
we've done with CS50, and I
think what you see now is really
the aggregate effect of a lot of
efforts by myself, by people like Brian,
by other members of our
team over the past 13 years
now since I took over
the class, and I think
the simplest answer from the get go is
that we set out some time ago really
just to solve a problem.
So back in 2004 or so, I was
teaching a different class
at Harvard's Extension School,
which is our continuing education
program for adults, primarily, both
on-campus and off, and at the time,
Harvard was using video technology
called Real Video if any of you
remember it.
It was one of the earliest
streaming video formats.
It wasn't that great, but it was still
cutting edge, nonetheless, at the time.
But it didn't allow you to
save the videos locally.
It didn't allow you to
take the videos with you.
And so it was around 2004 that, I think,
the first iPod came out, give or take,
and podcasting became a term.
I didn't really know what it was at the
time, but it seems interesting to us
that we could allow our
students in that class
to maybe download these videos or
even MP3s, audio recordings of them,
and then take them with them on
the train, to work, to the gym,
on the treadmill.
And so we really started doing
everything on the internet
just for our own students'
sake, but around that time,
did a whole lot of people around
the world start tuning in,
which was a pleasant surprise to us.
And then in the year since
then, did we very consciously
start making sure that
any materials we create
are digitally accessible as well.
And this is PDF, and this
is handouts, and this
is software and everything else.
And we also became more sensitized
to internationalization,
so very early on, we would ask
questions about American sports or even
US currency, which, of course, if you're
living abroad like many of you are,
you might not have those same
experiences or backgrounds.
And so I think in
recent years, too, we've
tried to be more culturally sensitive
and geographically sensitive
to students' disparate backgrounds
and not assume anything.
And so now we still
have a problem set, you
might recall, on cash,
a greedy algorithm,
but we define for everyone what a
nickel is, what a dime is, and so forth.
And then lastly, I think
I would propose that it's
thanks to members of
our team, one of whom
is-- a few of whom actually
are on this video call with us
today, Ian, and Arturo, and Ramon.
We have this amazing team
focusing on videography,
and we now stream in
widescreen 4k video.
And that's very deliberate, too.
I think all of us take
pride in what we're
doing, and the goal is not
to have, ironically today,
small, little video screens of people
normally, but media that really
draw the students in and make education
as engaging, if not entertaining,
as possible.
I spent 18 plus years in high school
and prior not really loving school.
I sort of worked hard just
because I thought I should,
but I don't think school needs
to be this obligatory thing.
I think it can be a passion, and
so we've tried to create, we hope,
an environment that draws
folks like yourself in.
