I'd written previously about MIT OpenCourseware, and the idea of 'taking' one of the classes. Some time ago, Dave Hoover chimed in and suggested we work on this together, specifically course 6.001 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs'. And yesterday I received an email from one Kaitlin Sherwood, also interested in the idea of persuing such a course. She gave me a link to an article she'd written on distance learning and education, and volunteered herself for the class as well. And today in church a high school senior who wants to major in Computer Science also chimed in and wants to participate.
Dave and I agreed that January seemed like the right time to begin. I'm writing this post mainly to put myself on the hook publically for taking the following actions in the near term:
Based on the MIT material and the materials at http://www.aduni.org, put together a calendar and syllabus for the class
Set up a server and find bandwidth to deliver the aduni videos (I have the hard drive).
Write a brochure documenting what the class is about.
Here are some thoughts on the brochure:
'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' is one of the classic texts of Computer Science. It is the textbook for the introductory Computer Science class at MIT, yet it covers many significant topics in Computer Science. It uses the language Scheme, which is a dialect of LISP. If you read the reviews of the book at Amazon.com, they fall into roughly two categories: 'Classic and profound', and 'Dense and incomprehensible'. As a means for getting as much as possible out of the book while avoiding its pitfalls, we propose a study group dedicated to the book, using the materials available from MIT and Arsdigita University as guides and evaluations of our study.
Here's what Eric Raymond has to say about LISP:
If you would like to 'take' this course, or mentor us as we take it, please contact me.
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