Substantive Contribution – Challenge C

For my first substantive post, I wanted to find an OER that explains a complex topic in a way that feels simple and approachable. I chose Dive into Deep Learning (D2L) – an online interactive textbook that teaches deep learning from the basics. What I really like about it is how it takes such a complicated topic and makes it easier to understand and engaging to learn. It’s not just open because it’s free, but also because of how well it’s designed for learners. From a learning point of view, D2L uses the Segmenting Principle really well. Instead of giving you long, hard chapters to read, it breaks everything into smaller sections. Each lesson builds on the previous one, so you can learn one idea at a time without feeling overwhelmed. This helps a lot, especially since deep learning can be a very heavy topic to start with.

Another thing I liked is how it encourages Active Processing. The site links directly to Jupyter notebooks that you can open in Google Colab or SageMaker. This means you can actually run the code, change it, and see what happens. I find this kind of hands-on practice much better for understanding, because it connects what you read with what you do. Overall, the website’s clean design, accessibility, and interactive approach make it easy for anyone to start learning deep learning. I think Dive into Deep Learning is a great example of how open resources can make even advanced topics feel easy to learn.

Source

Zhang, A., Lipton, Z. C., Li, M., & Smola, A. J. (n.d.). Dive into deep learning. https://d2l.ai