3 ms·

Show HN: LiaScript - Markdown for interactive and open online courses

27 points by passe 5y ago

passe 5y ago
Basically any Markdown can be used to describe educational content. Courses can be stored/hosted everywhere github or dropbox, or even IPFS and Hyper (via the Beaker-browser). The only thing you have to provide is the URL to your main README.md as an URL-Parameter: https://liascript.github.io/course/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liaScript/docs/master/README.md https://liascript.github.io/course/?https://raw.githubuserco... That's basically it. Anyone can create courses and share them her/his audience. No back-end, just a simple WebApp that can also store courses permanently, within the browser ... Extensions to common-Markdown are: * Multimedia Extensions: ?[audio](url), !?[video](url), ??[anything](url) * Text2Speech and Animations to provide a YouTube-like screen-cast feeling * Quizzes, surveys ... * Code-Blocks can be made executable and editable * Automated visualization of data provided within tables * Embrace the <script> tag * Extendable with macros and a simple packaging format * ASCII-Art and more ... The idea behind this project is, to have a simple language for educational content, which allows anyone to participate in the creation of educational content, by getting away from complex user-interfaces, platforms, vendor-locks, etc.
- animal_spirits 5y ago
  This is super cool, well done!
imagineerschool 5y ago
Thank you for this! Great work! I look forward to exploring it fully :) Really cool work - and it works! I'm going to noodle around and deploy it to gitlab :) On a philosophical aside, it hurts my heart to see "Open-Source" with the logo of a private company (microsoft-owned github) representing this Free Software for Free Culture. I'm embarrassed to bring it up, but I feel like the battle for our collective soul is being decided here. I do not wish to fault the author for making the most convenient choice for easy user onboarding, I just wish the world were otherwise. Thank you again to the wonderful author! --- Edit: This article on development is illuminating https://aizac.herokuapp.com/from-hero-to-zero-with-learning-management-systems/ https://aizac.herokuapp.com/from-hero-to-zero-with-learning-...
- passe 5y ago
  Thank you ... GitHub-pages was once just a test website and we stuck to it, but you can host it by your own. We try to be as agnostic as possible, but CORS is still a problem for many sites, which do not allow to load their content (README) by another site. With hosting content on GitLab, we had this problem, that they have this restriction and block loading ... previously we used cors-anywhere as a proxy, but this does not seem to work anymore, we will update this in the next version ... At the moment we are trying different protocols. At the moment we are trying different hosting options and protocols. LiaScript can be hosted via IPFS or Hyper and so can also the courses. Using the beaker-browser you can also directly write create content within the browser and share it immediately. Thus LiaScript also supports these protocols and more are about to come ;-)
- Proven 5y ago
  > On a philosophical aside, it hurts my heart to see "Open-Source" with the logo of a private company (microsoft-owned github) representing this Free Software for Free Culture Something can't be free unless it works or is structured according to this dude's rules. You are an ambassador of Free Culture, sir!!!

27 points by passe 5y ago

Basically any Markdown can be used to describe educational content. Courses can be stored/hosted everywhere github or dropbox, or even IPFS and Hyper (via the Beaker-browser). The only thing you have to provide is the URL to your main README.md as an URL-Parameter: https://liascript.github.io/course/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liaScript/docs/master/README.md https://liascript.github.io/course/?https://raw.githubuserco... That's basically it. Anyone can create courses and share them her/his audience. No back-end, just a simple WebApp that can also store courses permanently, within the browser ... Extensions to common-Markdown are: * Multimedia Extensions: ?[audio](url), !?[video](url), ??[anything](url) * Text2Speech and Animations to provide a YouTube-like screen-cast feeling * Quizzes, surveys ... * Code-Blocks can be made executable and editable * Automated visualization of data provided within tables * Embrace the <script> tag * Extendable with macros and a simple packaging format * ASCII-Art and more ... The idea behind this project is, to have a simple language for educational content, which allows anyone to participate in the creation of educational content, by getting away from complex user-interfaces, platforms, vendor-locks, etc.

animal_spirits 5y ago
This is super cool, well done!

imagineerschool 5y ago

Thank you for this! Great work! I look forward to exploring it fully :) Really cool work - and it works! I'm going to noodle around and deploy it to gitlab :) On a philosophical aside, it hurts my heart to see "Open-Source" with the logo of a private company (microsoft-owned github) representing this Free Software for Free Culture. I'm embarrassed to bring it up, but I feel like the battle for our collective soul is being decided here. I do not wish to fault the author for making the most convenient choice for easy user onboarding, I just wish the world were otherwise. Thank you again to the wonderful author! --- Edit: This article on development is illuminating https://aizac.herokuapp.com/from-hero-to-zero-with-learning-management-systems/ https://aizac.herokuapp.com/from-hero-to-zero-with-learning-...

passe 5y ago
Thank you ... GitHub-pages was once just a test website and we stuck to it, but you can host it by your own. We try to be as agnostic as possible, but CORS is still a problem for many sites, which do not allow to load their content (README) by another site. With hosting content on GitLab, we had this problem, that they have this restriction and block loading ... previously we used cors-anywhere as a proxy, but this does not seem to work anymore, we will update this in the next version ... At the moment we are trying different protocols. At the moment we are trying different hosting options and protocols. LiaScript can be hosted via IPFS or Hyper and so can also the courses. Using the beaker-browser you can also directly write create content within the browser and share it immediately. Thus LiaScript also supports these protocols and more are about to come ;-)
Proven 5y ago
> On a philosophical aside, it hurts my heart to see "Open-Source" with the logo of a private company (microsoft-owned github) representing this Free Software for Free Culture Something can't be free unless it works or is structured according to this dude's rules. You are an ambassador of Free Culture, sir!!!