11 ms·

Learn Anything White Paper

300 points by nikivi 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jngreenlee 9y ago
So it's like a meta-wiki?
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  It’s supposedly a self assembling learning plan for any subject. Meta-Khan Academy.
  - jngreenlee 9y ago
    So I tried "existentialism", and only got back a wrapper to the wiki: https://learn-anything.xyz/1338 https://learn-anything.xyz/1338 I'd think there would be more content to grab from?
    - nglgzz 9y ago
      If you know any good resources feel free to add them, so next time someone searches for "existentialism" they will find something more beside the link to wiki.
techupcian 9y ago
You can learn about white paper if you contact hackerdanielssmith@gmail.com ? Good luck
hsikka 9y ago
This is awesome, I’ve been following Learn Anything for a while, it’s been inspiring to see it grow.
- nikivi 9y ago
  Thank you a lot. This is really encouraging and helps us keep going with this idea.
mgadams3 9y ago
This is a great idea but lacks the critical concept of a "cohesive narrative". It's not enough just to know that the top resource for Javascript is Elequent Javascript and that the next 3 concepts are promises, ES6 and package managers (if that even is linearly correct in the first place). Each section needs a summary of how it connects to the node before and after it, which obviously should be edited by the community in wiki style.
- nikivi 9y ago
  Summaries of topics are a planned feature we hope to add in the future. We also hope to add user made 'notes' on each of the resources so anyone can see what other people think of the resource or link before visiting it. And we agree that the branching of one topic to another can be done in a better way. We hope to add features for users to be able to not only add resources but also create new 'nodes' and create and add new topics.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
johngaizick 9y ago
Miami dolphins rule
balazsdavid987 9y ago
Great initiative, but how it is different from a collection of links for subject X? The mindmap approach is fancy but does it deliver more value than a simple tree-like folder structure (especially on mobile)? Again, I think that's a great idea but I'm not sure about the execution.
- nikivi 9y ago
  Thank you. There is a lot of value in a simple tree-like folder structure as you say. It is easier to navigate and plays well with mobile. However, one of our goals with the website is not just finding the resource that you need to learn some topic. But exploring all the different topics and travelling from one topic to another. And we think that visualising these learning paths would really help with this goal. Granted that the current visualisation that you see live now on the website is not perfect. We hope to improve and make it better in the coming times. If you do have ideas on how we can improve it, the project is Open Source and built with React so you can add the features and details that you think are missing to make it more perfect for you and everyone else. We also provide an API so anyone can build a 'list-view' version of the website if anyone wants to.
fiatjaf 9y ago
I've seen "Learn Anything" links submitted here many times and every time I open them and conclude I don't like this approach -- it seems like a worse Google. But I dislike even more the fact that now there is a "whitepaper" with "abstract" and "conclusion". I didn't read it, though.
canercandan 9y ago
Sounds like the UI and the underlying mind map presentation are very different from the one illustrated in the youtube video.
- nikivi 9y ago
  It is. We recently released a big update to the Website that included a complete overhaul in design. We will make a new video and upload it very soon.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ropeladder 9y ago
Hey this looks really cool. Are you familiar with Metacademy? (https://metacademy.org/ https://metacademy.org/) (previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617683) Looks like you are trying to do a very similar thing, although they are maybe operating on a more conceptual level. What have you used to build the site and do the layout? I'm always interested in how people are using graph-based UIs since I've been working on one myself over at Thicket.io: https://thicket.io https://thicket.io. (you can browse a graph of academic paper citations and then connect papers to policy arguments) It's a real challenge to display lots of information coherently.
- nglgzz 9y ago
  Yeah we were partly inspired by it and the idea is similar. Although, they seem to focus on ML and Math, while we hope to cover as many topics as possible. Another difference is that we don't host any content, but just links to resources. For rendering the maps we're using React and D3. D3 is used for calculating the position of elements on the page and, React for rendering and manipulating those elements. Before we had a ref and let D3 manage everything on that ref, but it got unmanageable quite fast. EDIT: if you're interested here's an article that explains what I'm talking about https://medium.com/@Elijah_Meeks/interactive-applications-with-react-d3-f76f7b3ebc71 https://medium.com/@Elijah_Meeks/interactive-applications-wi...
  - ropeladder 9y ago
    Thanks for the link. I'm using D3 + Vue.js, with D3 handling the data, layout and rendering, and then Vue (with Vuex) handling events and state management. I think this example is closer to what you are doing (but using Vue)? https://emiliorizzo.github.io/vue-d3-network/ https://emiliorizzo.github.io/vue-d3-network/
    - nglgzz 9y ago
      I'm not familiar with Vue, but from the source of that link it seems a similar approach.
  - 9y ago
claudiulodro 9y ago
Interesting. I'm solving the same problem but with a different approach![1] I just finished the initial development yesterday so there isn't much in the way of documentation yet, but I'll give a quick overview as a comparison to this (since they have a similar goal but very different approaches): I have one course put together so far and that course is still a little rough[2] (again, just finished development yesterday). I think manual curation of resources by topic experts is required for this model to be effective. An expert on a subject will know where you should focus your efforts so you don't get lost just wandering around the internet digesting all the related information. mgadams3 touched on this with their observation about learn-anything.xyz courses needing a cohesive narrative. I also think tests are necessary. I have read many articles about all sorts of things and more-often-than-not the information goes in one ear and out the other. My approach involves a series of multiple choice quizzes every few articles and a multiple choice final exam at the end. This way you know that you have actually learned something before moving on. I don't have any tests set up for the course I have made yet, but they are an integral part of the process. learn-anything.xyz is cool. The tech is very impressive! I'm just not sure that it was made by someone that is actually going to use it for all of their learning, and I would have no idea how to effectively use it for my learning. Impressive work but that's just my 2 cents. [1] https://github.com/claudiulodro/multithreaded-knowledge https://github.com/claudiulodro/multithreaded-knowledge [2] http://multithreaded.link/course/mid-century-modern-furniture/ http://multithreaded.link/course/mid-century-modern-furnitur...
- nileshtrivedi 9y ago
  Please take some time to expand the README and a few screenshots, perhaps. :-)
  - claudiulodro 9y ago
    For sure. I wasn't expecting to talk about it anywhere for a few weeks. Keep an eye on that repo; there will definitely be more documentation and stuff coming soon.
brrrr 9y ago
I had a look at https://learn-anything.xyz https://learn-anything.xyz, and for most topics it's just a link to the Wikipedia page, and occasionally also a link to Reddit or StackExchange. Is this really all there is to it? It reminds me of the hand-curated website directories that were popular in the 1990s, before search engines had really hit the spot. Nothing groundbreaking here from what I can see.
- nikivi 9y ago
  Yes, there are some topics that are quite empty with resources sadly. However this can change with contributions and users using the website. For example there is a map for learning Machine Learning (https://learn-anything.xyz/machine-learning https://learn-anything.xyz/machine-learning) which is quite large. There are a few other maps like that in the database. All together there are over 2,000 maps available currently but this number too will grow with contributions.
  - gitgud 9y ago
    Have you thought about adding some kind of reputation system? To give incentive for contribution by users. A voting system could also be useful in verifying that the content is accurate/relevant to users.
    - nikivi 9y ago
      A voting system is already in place. Users can upvote or downvote resources according to what they like and think is useful. Having some kind of reputation system is also a really good idea. You were thinking of having it similar to Reddit where you get `karma` for posting good resources?
      - gitgud 9y ago
        Thanks for the responses (to both threads). Yes, reputation is an important factor to the success of all these platforms; Reddit, Stackoverflow, Imgur, Hacker news.... It gives a quantifiable measure of how much you're helping a community. Without it, members can't see the effects of the contributions they've made, and are probably less likely to continue contributing. I personally believe it's an extremely small minority of people who will contribute to your website for altruistic reasons alone.
BucketSort 9y ago
I really like this initiative. As others have mentioned, there are similar efforts. One thing I'd like to see is an adaptive lesson plan based on a learners affinity. For example, let's say we have a calculus lesson plan. There could be several modules on limits. Once a learning profile is established it could be used to guide learners to the module best suited for them. There are many ideas about this, but I just wanted to mention something about adaptive learning, because I'm very keen on its applications.
jgrodziski 9y ago
Yes, great initiative. I tried to do the same with my "Learn Computing Directory" [0] website some times ago...with hand curated links towards websites, books, video courses, etc. all on a github repo Should have add a way to upvote the links... I find the "Graph" way of presenting the topics very interesting. I think trying to deal with all the conceivable topics is a dead end, but maybe allowing to install the software, like discourse, in communities websites may be a better strategy? [0]: https://www.learn-computing-directory.org/ https://www.learn-computing-directory.org/
Mbioguy 9y ago
Wikipedia harnessed the creative commons to create a massive store of knowledge. It created a fantastic resource for topical learning. However, that resource was not created with fast and efficient sequential learning in mind. WikiBooks and Wikiversity were projects I had high hopes for, but as yet have not succeeded in the way Wikipedia has. The meta of how to learn effectively was not something I recall ever studying in school, and only recently have focused on. It's hard because different techniques may work for some better than others, and what works for an adult may not work as well for a child. I eagerly await the gamification of education. Books and videos can be fantastic, but are not the end-all of education. You can't just be given knowledge, you must interact with it, and use it. When I studied basic anatomy, one of the most time-effective methods I ever discovered was using anatomy apps on my phone that made a game of recall. When starting to program, I appreciated websites that included input sections and would compile and run them in-browser. I could practice what I was learning and learn from mistakes as I went. Interactivity works well. Nowadays I use Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/) on my PC and phone, following Wozniak's Rules of Formulating Knowledge (https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules) when creating my own study decks. I really like using decks created collaboratively by the community, that correspond to an external resource like a textbook. There is power in connecting books and videos to interactive methods of learning like Anki and others. What resources can be synergistically used together in a time-efficient way? I hope this project curates and collates not just books and video sources but also interactive methods of learning. The idea of using the collaborative commons to create an entire system is intriguing. I hope the concept of valuing resources by time spent and efficiency gets more attention.
nileshtrivedi 9y ago
You are asking for contributions from people and at the same time, you have plans to "monetize" the website by building premium-only features. It feels like exploitation.
- nglgzz 9y ago
  I'm really sad you feel that way. Wikipedia also asks for contributions and donations, does that feel like exploitation to you? No it doesn't, cause there's a massive amount of work that goes in projects like these and there's costs too. Costs that donations don't always pay. Would you prefer a huge banner while you're browsing asking you to donate and telling you that if we don't meet a certain quota we're shutting down the website, or would you prefer having an additional feature that you may or may not want to pay for? I don't know you, but I'd definitely go for the second one.
  - andrepd 9y ago
    Wikipedia is entirely free, and asks for donations to cover its costs. It does not lock any features to paying users only. There is a world of a difference. For this to be the case, on a website made by user contributions no less, is even more upsetting. And yes, I prefer an unreservedly free website with banners reminding you to donate to a website that makes money off locking certain features to paying costumers only.
    - nglgzz 9y ago
      It's not about locking features to paying users only. It's about making new features that have enough value to you that you want to pay to use them. Take the example from the white paper (paid help from experts), I don't get how you'd feel exploited that way, since it's not even related to contributions.
      - y4mi 9y ago
        not the parent, but wouldn't contribute on a website that a) gets its content solely from its users and b) locks features away behind a paywall especially if it's for learning. But to each his own and you cannot please everyone. Don't feel discouraged and keep going. The product looks pretty good. ( your simile with wikipedia breaks apart on the b btw, thats why nobody minds it there )
YaxelPerez 9y ago
Kind of unrelated, but I've found that a good way to direct your research on a subject is to write or edit articles on https://simple.wikipedia.org https://simple.wikipedia.org. It forces you to understand a topic to the point where you can explain it simply, kind of like the Feynman Technique. Plus, other people can look at your writings and understand the subject too.
DelightOne 9y ago
Any success stories?
ozcoder56 9y ago
Also checkout https://www.commonlounge.com https://www.commonlounge.com
aSockPuppeteer 9y ago
Please add pre-requisites as well to the model. For the vectors > linear algebra example: someone may need to re-learn a few techniques before diving in. Another revenue stream to consider may be https://coinhive.com/ https://coinhive.com/ It uses the clients computer to mine monero(crypto currency) which you can then exchange for bitcoin or anything. It is less intrusive than a banner or transaction request and a user merely needs to click a checkbox to donate their cpu time. Good luck and make it work without javascript as well.
- arbie 9y ago
  Adding prerequisites would make a great beginning to a universal tech tree!
  - nikivi 9y ago
    That would be amazing indeed. This is only a beginning of what can be possible, I am sure we can add something like this in the future.
- nikivi 9y ago
  We already have pre-requisites for some topics. Like for example in machine learning. But we do hope to add pre-requisites to all topics as that is really important indeed. Coinhive does look interesting. Thank you for the suggestion.
lsc 9y ago
One side of being an adult learner is that this is self-directed. I don't know what comes before what; I want, for example, a good math education. What does a good math education involve? I don't know! I mean, one of the big things college does is that it serializes your learning. Gives it order. I kind of do the same thing when I read; one book will recommend another in an introduction; with the kindle, I'll often stop reading the first book, go buy and read the recommended book, then return (or not) to the first book. But that happens a lot more in Literature than in Mathematics books, it would seem. I type in 'calculus' and it seems to start with calculus, rather than giving me all the prerequisites. It does have a nice list of links (most of which I've seen before, but that I've decided I need more math background to properly digest) The prerequisites, in my experience, are super important. if you skip the prerequisites and think you understand, you are probably getting the "Malcom Gladwell" version of the subject; which in many ways is worse than nothing at all; that's how we've got so many people who have even less math knowledge than I do who think they can explain quantum physics to me. I at least know enough to know that I don't understand, I understand that shrodinger's paradox is not enough to understand what's actually going on; I mean, I know the paradox, and explaining it to me slowly saying, "You understand?" won't help. I need the math background to give the paradox meaning. You do too. I guess the other problem here is that for basic math, Khan academy is super hard to beat. I can tell Khan "I want to learn calculus" and it will make me do all the prerequisites for calculus. I think that doing this for basic math after Khan is a little like starting a new encyclopedia after Wikipedia; I'm not saying that creating value there is impossible, but you have a hell of a competitor.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ybalkind 9y ago
I've thought about this concept before and I would tackle it as so: For every subject you need to list: - the pre-prequisites - the subsequent subjects one can learn on top of this one You then have a map of learning. That's phase 1. the next phase is for each subject to list - where to learn it (books, articles, online courses) - where to practice it so that once you've learned it you can get better at it and commit it to memory (applies more to some subjects than others. You cannot practice History, but you can practice literacy, numeracy, human languages and programming for example) - where to get tested on it so that you can objectively test your level and get certification The internet has opened up learning of everything. The problem is knowing what to learn, where to start, and how to structure your learning. The above solution would fill the gaps in my opinion. In fact there is one more layer you can add to all of the above, Gamification. Build a Strava for learning where you can get points for learning, practicing and getting certified in various subjects, and share your progress with friends and family who can motivate you to push on. I can imagine the above framework being implemented from primary school to basically enable self-learning as a primary form of learning. Teachers would play a supporting role. Students would have much more freedom to align their learning with their interest and would be able to learn exponentially faster and more effectively. I'm in South Africa, and I've thought of this as a solution to our public education system which is producing a generation of semi-literate unemployable. If someone believes in the model as I stated it and has the means and capacity to launch a startup in this vein I hope you will loop me in.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

300 points by nikivi 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jngreenlee 9y ago

So it's like a meta-wiki?

toomuchtodo 9y ago
It’s supposedly a self assembling learning plan for any subject. Meta-Khan Academy.
- jngreenlee 9y ago
  So I tried "existentialism", and only got back a wrapper to the wiki: https://learn-anything.xyz/1338 https://learn-anything.xyz/1338 I'd think there would be more content to grab from?
  - nglgzz 9y ago
    If you know any good resources feel free to add them, so next time someone searches for "existentialism" they will find something more beside the link to wiki.

techupcian 9y ago

You can learn about white paper if you contact hackerdanielssmith@gmail.com ? Good luck

hsikka 9y ago

This is awesome, I’ve been following Learn Anything for a while, it’s been inspiring to see it grow.

nikivi 9y ago
Thank you a lot. This is really encouraging and helps us keep going with this idea.

mgadams3 9y ago

This is a great idea but lacks the critical concept of a "cohesive narrative". It's not enough just to know that the top resource for Javascript is Elequent Javascript and that the next 3 concepts are promises, ES6 and package managers (if that even is linearly correct in the first place). Each section needs a summary of how it connects to the node before and after it, which obviously should be edited by the community in wiki style.

nikivi 9y ago
Summaries of topics are a planned feature we hope to add in the future. We also hope to add user made 'notes' on each of the resources so anyone can see what other people think of the resource or link before visiting it. And we agree that the branching of one topic to another can be done in a better way. We hope to add features for users to be able to not only add resources but also create new 'nodes' and create and add new topics.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

johngaizick 9y ago

Miami dolphins rule

balazsdavid987 9y ago

Great initiative, but how it is different from a collection of links for subject X? The mindmap approach is fancy but does it deliver more value than a simple tree-like folder structure (especially on mobile)? Again, I think that's a great idea but I'm not sure about the execution.

nikivi 9y ago
Thank you. There is a lot of value in a simple tree-like folder structure as you say. It is easier to navigate and plays well with mobile. However, one of our goals with the website is not just finding the resource that you need to learn some topic. But exploring all the different topics and travelling from one topic to another. And we think that visualising these learning paths would really help with this goal. Granted that the current visualisation that you see live now on the website is not perfect. We hope to improve and make it better in the coming times. If you do have ideas on how we can improve it, the project is Open Source and built with React so you can add the features and details that you think are missing to make it more perfect for you and everyone else. We also provide an API so anyone can build a 'list-view' version of the website if anyone wants to.

fiatjaf 9y ago

I've seen "Learn Anything" links submitted here many times and every time I open them and conclude I don't like this approach -- it seems like a worse Google. But I dislike even more the fact that now there is a "whitepaper" with "abstract" and "conclusion". I didn't read it, though.

canercandan 9y ago

Sounds like the UI and the underlying mind map presentation are very different from the one illustrated in the youtube video.

nikivi 9y ago
It is. We recently released a big update to the Website that included a complete overhaul in design. We will make a new video and upload it very soon.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ropeladder 9y ago

Hey this looks really cool. Are you familiar with Metacademy? (https://metacademy.org/ https://metacademy.org/) (previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617683) Looks like you are trying to do a very similar thing, although they are maybe operating on a more conceptual level. What have you used to build the site and do the layout? I'm always interested in how people are using graph-based UIs since I've been working on one myself over at Thicket.io: https://thicket.io https://thicket.io. (you can browse a graph of academic paper citations and then connect papers to policy arguments) It's a real challenge to display lots of information coherently.

nglgzz 9y ago
Yeah we were partly inspired by it and the idea is similar. Although, they seem to focus on ML and Math, while we hope to cover as many topics as possible. Another difference is that we don't host any content, but just links to resources. For rendering the maps we're using React and D3. D3 is used for calculating the position of elements on the page and, React for rendering and manipulating those elements. Before we had a ref and let D3 manage everything on that ref, but it got unmanageable quite fast. EDIT: if you're interested here's an article that explains what I'm talking about https://medium.com/@Elijah_Meeks/interactive-applications-with-react-d3-f76f7b3ebc71 https://medium.com/@Elijah_Meeks/interactive-applications-wi...
- ropeladder 9y ago
  Thanks for the link. I'm using D3 + Vue.js, with D3 handling the data, layout and rendering, and then Vue (with Vuex) handling events and state management. I think this example is closer to what you are doing (but using Vue)? https://emiliorizzo.github.io/vue-d3-network/ https://emiliorizzo.github.io/vue-d3-network/
  - nglgzz 9y ago
    I'm not familiar with Vue, but from the source of that link it seems a similar approach.
- 9y ago

claudiulodro 9y ago

Interesting. I'm solving the same problem but with a different approach![1] I just finished the initial development yesterday so there isn't much in the way of documentation yet, but I'll give a quick overview as a comparison to this (since they have a similar goal but very different approaches): I have one course put together so far and that course is still a little rough[2] (again, just finished development yesterday). I think manual curation of resources by topic experts is required for this model to be effective. An expert on a subject will know where you should focus your efforts so you don't get lost just wandering around the internet digesting all the related information. mgadams3 touched on this with their observation about learn-anything.xyz courses needing a cohesive narrative. I also think tests are necessary. I have read many articles about all sorts of things and more-often-than-not the information goes in one ear and out the other. My approach involves a series of multiple choice quizzes every few articles and a multiple choice final exam at the end. This way you know that you have actually learned something before moving on. I don't have any tests set up for the course I have made yet, but they are an integral part of the process. learn-anything.xyz is cool. The tech is very impressive! I'm just not sure that it was made by someone that is actually going to use it for all of their learning, and I would have no idea how to effectively use it for my learning. Impressive work but that's just my 2 cents. [1] https://github.com/claudiulodro/multithreaded-knowledge https://github.com/claudiulodro/multithreaded-knowledge [2] http://multithreaded.link/course/mid-century-modern-furniture/ http://multithreaded.link/course/mid-century-modern-furnitur...

nileshtrivedi 9y ago
Please take some time to expand the README and a few screenshots, perhaps. :-)
- claudiulodro 9y ago
  For sure. I wasn't expecting to talk about it anywhere for a few weeks. Keep an eye on that repo; there will definitely be more documentation and stuff coming soon.

brrrr 9y ago

I had a look at https://learn-anything.xyz https://learn-anything.xyz, and for most topics it's just a link to the Wikipedia page, and occasionally also a link to Reddit or StackExchange. Is this really all there is to it? It reminds me of the hand-curated website directories that were popular in the 1990s, before search engines had really hit the spot. Nothing groundbreaking here from what I can see.

nikivi 9y ago
Yes, there are some topics that are quite empty with resources sadly. However this can change with contributions and users using the website. For example there is a map for learning Machine Learning (https://learn-anything.xyz/machine-learning https://learn-anything.xyz/machine-learning) which is quite large. There are a few other maps like that in the database. All together there are over 2,000 maps available currently but this number too will grow with contributions.
- gitgud 9y ago
  Have you thought about adding some kind of reputation system? To give incentive for contribution by users. A voting system could also be useful in verifying that the content is accurate/relevant to users.
  - nikivi 9y ago
    A voting system is already in place. Users can upvote or downvote resources according to what they like and think is useful. Having some kind of reputation system is also a really good idea. You were thinking of having it similar to Reddit where you get `karma` for posting good resources?
    - gitgud 9y ago
      Thanks for the responses (to both threads). Yes, reputation is an important factor to the success of all these platforms; Reddit, Stackoverflow, Imgur, Hacker news.... It gives a quantifiable measure of how much you're helping a community. Without it, members can't see the effects of the contributions they've made, and are probably less likely to continue contributing. I personally believe it's an extremely small minority of people who will contribute to your website for altruistic reasons alone.

BucketSort 9y ago

I really like this initiative. As others have mentioned, there are similar efforts. One thing I'd like to see is an adaptive lesson plan based on a learners affinity. For example, let's say we have a calculus lesson plan. There could be several modules on limits. Once a learning profile is established it could be used to guide learners to the module best suited for them. There are many ideas about this, but I just wanted to mention something about adaptive learning, because I'm very keen on its applications.

jgrodziski 9y ago

Yes, great initiative. I tried to do the same with my "Learn Computing Directory" [0] website some times ago...with hand curated links towards websites, books, video courses, etc. all on a github repo Should have add a way to upvote the links... I find the "Graph" way of presenting the topics very interesting. I think trying to deal with all the conceivable topics is a dead end, but maybe allowing to install the software, like discourse, in communities websites may be a better strategy? [0]: https://www.learn-computing-directory.org/ https://www.learn-computing-directory.org/

Mbioguy 9y ago

Wikipedia harnessed the creative commons to create a massive store of knowledge. It created a fantastic resource for topical learning. However, that resource was not created with fast and efficient sequential learning in mind. WikiBooks and Wikiversity were projects I had high hopes for, but as yet have not succeeded in the way Wikipedia has. The meta of how to learn effectively was not something I recall ever studying in school, and only recently have focused on. It's hard because different techniques may work for some better than others, and what works for an adult may not work as well for a child. I eagerly await the gamification of education. Books and videos can be fantastic, but are not the end-all of education. You can't just be given knowledge, you must interact with it, and use it. When I studied basic anatomy, one of the most time-effective methods I ever discovered was using anatomy apps on my phone that made a game of recall. When starting to program, I appreciated websites that included input sections and would compile and run them in-browser. I could practice what I was learning and learn from mistakes as I went. Interactivity works well. Nowadays I use Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/) on my PC and phone, following Wozniak's Rules of Formulating Knowledge (https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules) when creating my own study decks. I really like using decks created collaboratively by the community, that correspond to an external resource like a textbook. There is power in connecting books and videos to interactive methods of learning like Anki and others. What resources can be synergistically used together in a time-efficient way? I hope this project curates and collates not just books and video sources but also interactive methods of learning. The idea of using the collaborative commons to create an entire system is intriguing. I hope the concept of valuing resources by time spent and efficiency gets more attention.

nileshtrivedi 9y ago

You are asking for contributions from people and at the same time, you have plans to "monetize" the website by building premium-only features. It feels like exploitation.

nglgzz 9y ago
I'm really sad you feel that way. Wikipedia also asks for contributions and donations, does that feel like exploitation to you? No it doesn't, cause there's a massive amount of work that goes in projects like these and there's costs too. Costs that donations don't always pay. Would you prefer a huge banner while you're browsing asking you to donate and telling you that if we don't meet a certain quota we're shutting down the website, or would you prefer having an additional feature that you may or may not want to pay for? I don't know you, but I'd definitely go for the second one.
- andrepd 9y ago
  Wikipedia is entirely free, and asks for donations to cover its costs. It does not lock any features to paying users only. There is a world of a difference. For this to be the case, on a website made by user contributions no less, is even more upsetting. And yes, I prefer an unreservedly free website with banners reminding you to donate to a website that makes money off locking certain features to paying costumers only.
  - nglgzz 9y ago
    It's not about locking features to paying users only. It's about making new features that have enough value to you that you want to pay to use them. Take the example from the white paper (paid help from experts), I don't get how you'd feel exploited that way, since it's not even related to contributions.
    - y4mi 9y ago
      not the parent, but wouldn't contribute on a website that a) gets its content solely from its users and b) locks features away behind a paywall especially if it's for learning. But to each his own and you cannot please everyone. Don't feel discouraged and keep going. The product looks pretty good. ( your simile with wikipedia breaks apart on the b btw, thats why nobody minds it there )

YaxelPerez 9y ago

Kind of unrelated, but I've found that a good way to direct your research on a subject is to write or edit articles on https://simple.wikipedia.org https://simple.wikipedia.org. It forces you to understand a topic to the point where you can explain it simply, kind of like the Feynman Technique. Plus, other people can look at your writings and understand the subject too.

DelightOne 9y ago

Any success stories?

ozcoder56 9y ago

Also checkout https://www.commonlounge.com https://www.commonlounge.com

aSockPuppeteer 9y ago

Please add pre-requisites as well to the model. For the vectors > linear algebra example: someone may need to re-learn a few techniques before diving in. Another revenue stream to consider may be https://coinhive.com/ https://coinhive.com/ It uses the clients computer to mine monero(crypto currency) which you can then exchange for bitcoin or anything. It is less intrusive than a banner or transaction request and a user merely needs to click a checkbox to donate their cpu time. Good luck and make it work without javascript as well.

arbie 9y ago
Adding prerequisites would make a great beginning to a universal tech tree!
- nikivi 9y ago
  That would be amazing indeed. This is only a beginning of what can be possible, I am sure we can add something like this in the future.
nikivi 9y ago
We already have pre-requisites for some topics. Like for example in machine learning. But we do hope to add pre-requisites to all topics as that is really important indeed. Coinhive does look interesting. Thank you for the suggestion.

lsc 9y ago

One side of being an adult learner is that this is self-directed. I don't know what comes before what; I want, for example, a good math education. What does a good math education involve? I don't know! I mean, one of the big things college does is that it serializes your learning. Gives it order. I kind of do the same thing when I read; one book will recommend another in an introduction; with the kindle, I'll often stop reading the first book, go buy and read the recommended book, then return (or not) to the first book. But that happens a lot more in Literature than in Mathematics books, it would seem. I type in 'calculus' and it seems to start with calculus, rather than giving me all the prerequisites. It does have a nice list of links (most of which I've seen before, but that I've decided I need more math background to properly digest) The prerequisites, in my experience, are super important. if you skip the prerequisites and think you understand, you are probably getting the "Malcom Gladwell" version of the subject; which in many ways is worse than nothing at all; that's how we've got so many people who have even less math knowledge than I do who think they can explain quantum physics to me. I at least know enough to know that I don't understand, I understand that shrodinger's paradox is not enough to understand what's actually going on; I mean, I know the paradox, and explaining it to me slowly saying, "You understand?" won't help. I need the math background to give the paradox meaning. You do too. I guess the other problem here is that for basic math, Khan academy is super hard to beat. I can tell Khan "I want to learn calculus" and it will make me do all the prerequisites for calculus. I think that doing this for basic math after Khan is a little like starting a new encyclopedia after Wikipedia; I'm not saying that creating value there is impossible, but you have a hell of a competitor.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ybalkind 9y ago

I've thought about this concept before and I would tackle it as so: For every subject you need to list: - the pre-prequisites - the subsequent subjects one can learn on top of this one You then have a map of learning. That's phase 1. the next phase is for each subject to list - where to learn it (books, articles, online courses) - where to practice it so that once you've learned it you can get better at it and commit it to memory (applies more to some subjects than others. You cannot practice History, but you can practice literacy, numeracy, human languages and programming for example) - where to get tested on it so that you can objectively test your level and get certification The internet has opened up learning of everything. The problem is knowing what to learn, where to start, and how to structure your learning. The above solution would fill the gaps in my opinion. In fact there is one more layer you can add to all of the above, Gamification. Build a Strava for learning where you can get points for learning, practicing and getting certified in various subjects, and share your progress with friends and family who can motivate you to push on. I can imagine the above framework being implemented from primary school to basically enable self-learning as a primary form of learning. Teachers would play a supporting role. Students would have much more freedom to align their learning with their interest and would be able to learn exponentially faster and more effectively. I'm in South Africa, and I've thought of this as a solution to our public education system which is producing a generation of semi-literate unemployable. If someone believes in the model as I stated it and has the means and capacity to launch a startup in this vein I hope you will loop me in.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]