Posted by Peter Norvig, Director of Research
On July 26th, Google's 2012 Faculty Summit hosted computer science professors from around the world for a chance to talk and hear about some of the work done by Google and by our faculty partners. One of the sessions was a panel on Online Education. Daphne Koller's presentation on "Education at Scale" describes how a talk about YouTube at the 2009 Google Faculty Summit was an early inspiration for her, as she was formulating her approach that led to the founding of Coursera. Koller started with the goal of allowing Stanford professors to have more time for meaningful interaction with their students, rather than just lecturing, and ended up with a model based on the flipped classroom, where students watch videos out of class, and then come together to discuss what they have learned. She then refined the flipped classroom to work when there is no classroom, when the interactions occur in online discussion forums rather than in person. She described some fascinating experiments that allow for more flexible types of questions (beyond multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank) by using peer grading of exercises.
In my talk, I describe how I arrived at a similar approach but starting with a different motivation: I wanted a textbook that was more interactive and engaging than a static paper-based book, so I too incorporated short videos and frequent interactions for the Intro to AI class I taught with Sebastian Thrun.
Finally, Bradley Horowitz, Vice President of Product Management for Google+ gave a talk describing the goals of Google+. It is not to build the largest social network; rather it is to understand our users better, so that we can serve them better, while respecting their privacy, and keeping each of their conversations within the appropriate circle of friends. This allows people to have more meaningful conversations, within a limited context, and turns out to be very appropriate to education.
By bringing people together at events like the Faculty Summit, we hope to spark the conversations and ideas that will lead to the next breakthroughs, perhaps in online education, or perhaps in other fields. We'll find out a few years from now what ideas took root at this year's Summit.
cross-posted on the Research Blog
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Posted by Lisa McCracken, on behalf of the Technical Programs Editorial Board
Thanks to everyone who has been a loyal reader of this blog over the last two years.
Posted by Lisa McCracken, on behalf of the Technical Programs Editorial Board
Thanks to everyone who has been a loyal reader of this blog over the last two years.
September 15 marked the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month and the start of our third year celebrating the Hispanic community through events and community outreach initiatives.
Michel Benard, University Relations Manager
Last week we held our fifth Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Faculty Summit in London, bringing together 94 of EMEA’s foremost computer science academics from 65 universities representing 25 countries, together with more than 60 Googlers.
Last week we held our fifth Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Faculty Summit in London, bringing together 94 of EMEA’s foremost computer science academics from 65 universities representing 25 countries, together with more than 60 Googlers.
Posted by Dan Russell, Uber Tech Lead, Search Quality & User Happiness
If you missed Power Searching with Google a few months ago or were unable to complete the course the first time around, now’s your chance to sign up again for our free online course that aims to empower our users with the tools
If you missed Power Searching with Google a few months ago or were unable to complete the course the first time around, now’s your chance to sign up again for our free online course that aims to empower our users with the tools
Posted by Peter Norvig, Director of Research
On July 26th, Google's 2012 Faculty Summit hosted computer science professors from around the world for a chance to talk and hear about some of the work done by Google and by our faculty partners. One of the sessions was a panel on Online Education.
On July 26th, Google's 2012 Faculty Summit hosted computer science professors from around the world for a chance to talk and hear about some of the work done by Google and by our faculty partners. One of the sessions was a panel on Online Education.
Posted by Andrea Held, University Relations
In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a major transition from stand-alone applications that run on desktop computers to applications running in the cloud.
In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a major transition from stand-alone applications that run on desktop computers to applications running in the cloud.
Posted by Craig Rubens, People Operations Communications team
Now that Google I/O has concluded, the parachutes have been repacked, hundreds of pounds of snacks have all been eaten and the Moscone Center has fewer robots prowling its hallways.
Now that Google I/O has concluded, the parachutes have been repacked, hundreds of pounds of snacks have all been eaten and the Moscone Center has fewer robots prowling its hallways.
Google I/O, our annual developer conference, begins in just two days, and this year, we’re bringing you more than 130 technical sessions, 20 code labs and 155 Sandbox partners.
Posted by Jim Keller, Software Engineer
Next week, Google will join the Internet speed community at the Velocity 2012 conference in Santa Clara, California. This will be our fifth year at the O’Reilly Velocity Web Performance and Operations Conference.
Next week, Google will join the Internet speed community at the Velocity 2012 conference in Santa Clara, California. This will be our fifth year at the O’Reilly Velocity Web Performance and Operations Conference.
Researchers at Google have enormous potential to impact the experience of Google users, which means it’s of enormous importance for us to conduct Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research.
Today, we're opening up registration for Google Code Jam 2012. This year thousands of students, professional programmers and freelance code wizards will pit their ingenuity against a new set of algorithmic challenges concocted by our tireless team of red-eyed, LED-illuminated problem writers.
Last month, in honor of Black History Month, Google offices in five cities in North America hosted events celebrating black professionals in our community. Across the country, we opened our doors to over 400 guests consisting of engineers, entrepreneurs, technologists, students and professors.
Cross-posted on the Google Research Blog
At the 25th Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in Granada, Spain last December, we engaged in dialogue with a diverse population of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, statistical learning theorists, and machine learning researchers.
At the 25th Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in Granada, Spain last December, we engaged in dialogue with a diverse population of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, statistical learning theorists, and machine learning researchers.
As we mentioned in a previous post, Googlers traveled to Boston this month to participate in the Usenix LISA '11 conference. Nearly 1,300 IT professionals attended this year’s conference to discuss cutting edge system administration techniques and technologies.
We participate in the sysadmin community in many ways. Many Googlers are involved in their local Unix users’ groups and give presentations at conferences. One conference we participate heavily in is the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference.
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