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Hey folks! I just spent the past few nights building LearnSearch, a web app where you can share learning resources and upvote the ones that help you or are valu

by hsikka 9y ago

Hey folks! I just spent the past few nights building LearnSearch, a web app where you can share learning resources and upvote the ones that help you or are valuable in someway. I asked a lot of people what they wished they knew when they started self teaching or learning something new, and the feedback was always that they wish they could tell the good resources from the ones that lead them astray, and that others were vital in letting them know about this. I wanted to make this same interaction scaleable, so I built LearnSearch! At it's core, LearnSearch is trying to bring that experience of asking the right person and getting actionable advice on how to learn something, to scale so that we all can tap into our collective experiences. LearnSearch is still in its early, early infancy, and I'm going to continue to build out different feeds, my big vision is that users will eventually be able to upload their own learning guides and paths, linking together relevant resources in meaningful ways. You'll also be able to search the body of knowledge to find exactly what you need. It's my first real crack at a side project, and it's got about 50 users so far! Small things like that make me happy. I'm gonna grab a quick nap, since I haven't slept in a while, but I'd love to hear what you guys think ;)

asicsp 9y ago
good project to work on! I too had similar idea (especially about confidently pointing out to good resources) but never started it.. instead I just created curated resources for topics I'm familiar with obviously you haven't yet implemented search, do consider doing something like https://learn-anything.xyz/mathematics https://learn-anything.xyz/mathematics
- hsikka 9y ago
  Awesome, yeah I love learn-anything, i just think there is a more fluid contribution mechanism that could be implemented. Search is a feature I really want to add, it's been my intention to always make this a sort of human curated search engine for learning. The ability to be able to type in a query and see actionable links rated by their upvotes would be magical. Thank you for the feedback, I'll keep hacking and trying to improve it :)
DelightOne 9y ago
In which way can resources lead people astray? It sounds kinda weird. I thought a resource has topics whereby it sets its focus. Is it cause they expected sth else from the resource? Was the focus unexpected? Is the content wrong? Not useful for certain problems? Is it cause it repeats sth learnt already?
- hsikka 9y ago
  Yep, all of the above, I think that especially when someone is trying to learn something relatively foreign to them, they don't yet have the ability to navigate a lot of the nuances of focus or content that a more experienced learner in that field can parse more quickly. It's sort of the same interaction that we have when we ask advice or pointers from others in real life who have done something we want to do. We want to optimize our path by building off their knowledge and understand what to focus on , what not to focus on. I'm trying to bring that interaction to scale, though I hopefully will do a better job as this goes on
  - DelightOne 9y ago
    And what you focus on is to be determined by who votes for what? And that over the whole Topic of Computer Science but you probably know what I mean. Lets say you create a Theory Hierarchy like learn-anything.xyz. Is the vote in a collection supposed to mean the most useful order in which to learn the given Theory in the Theory Collection? Or is it what is the most interesting for the educated? What is the upvote supposed to mean here? Is the Software also to navigate alternatives to a Theory? How would you handle different focuses? What if a Book handles two Theories both located in a Theory Collection? Will it be in both Theory Strands(collection of alternatives for a Theory)? I‘m interested in this too. Regards.
    - hsikka 9y ago
      My friend, these are incredible insights I honestly haven't got the chance to consider deeply yet. I'll get back to you asap
handbanana 9y ago
doesn't work/10. Just the header and welcome message displaying, regardless of where I click
- hsikka 9y ago
  That's really strange, mind trying again? It's working on several machines I just tried

by hsikka 9y ago

asicsp 9y ago

good project to work on! I too had similar idea (especially about confidently pointing out to good resources) but never started it.. instead I just created curated resources for topics I'm familiar with obviously you haven't yet implemented search, do consider doing something like https://learn-anything.xyz/mathematics https://learn-anything.xyz/mathematics

hsikka 9y ago
Awesome, yeah I love learn-anything, i just think there is a more fluid contribution mechanism that could be implemented. Search is a feature I really want to add, it's been my intention to always make this a sort of human curated search engine for learning. The ability to be able to type in a query and see actionable links rated by their upvotes would be magical. Thank you for the feedback, I'll keep hacking and trying to improve it :)

DelightOne 9y ago

In which way can resources lead people astray? It sounds kinda weird. I thought a resource has topics whereby it sets its focus. Is it cause they expected sth else from the resource? Was the focus unexpected? Is the content wrong? Not useful for certain problems? Is it cause it repeats sth learnt already?

hsikka 9y ago
Yep, all of the above, I think that especially when someone is trying to learn something relatively foreign to them, they don't yet have the ability to navigate a lot of the nuances of focus or content that a more experienced learner in that field can parse more quickly. It's sort of the same interaction that we have when we ask advice or pointers from others in real life who have done something we want to do. We want to optimize our path by building off their knowledge and understand what to focus on , what not to focus on. I'm trying to bring that interaction to scale, though I hopefully will do a better job as this goes on
- DelightOne 9y ago
  And what you focus on is to be determined by who votes for what? And that over the whole Topic of Computer Science but you probably know what I mean. Lets say you create a Theory Hierarchy like learn-anything.xyz. Is the vote in a collection supposed to mean the most useful order in which to learn the given Theory in the Theory Collection? Or is it what is the most interesting for the educated? What is the upvote supposed to mean here? Is the Software also to navigate alternatives to a Theory? How would you handle different focuses? What if a Book handles two Theories both located in a Theory Collection? Will it be in both Theory Strands(collection of alternatives for a Theory)? I‘m interested in this too. Regards.
  - hsikka 9y ago
    My friend, these are incredible insights I honestly haven't got the chance to consider deeply yet. I'll get back to you asap

handbanana 9y ago

doesn't work/10. Just the header and welcome message displaying, regardless of where I click

hsikka 9y ago
That's really strange, mind trying again? It's working on several machines I just tried