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A group of Finnish math teachers write an open textbook in a weekend hackathon
- norswap 14y agoSomehow, I don't think a textbook should be something you write in a hurry.
- Tuna-Fish 14y agoThe scope (Finnish Lukio class maa1) is very limited, making this quite feasible.
- borplk 14y agoEqually true for software but well
- Orva 14y agoThey are writing it during this weekend, but press release for hackathon was month ago (http://pastebin.com/sKKnRL19 http://pastebin.com/sKKnRL19) and if I recall correctly he was hinting something about this project month or two before that. So there has been time for planning. And like Tuna-Fish said, Finnish high school courses are quite limited and self-contained.
- wisty 14y agoNo, it should be something which is written over decades, like the Linux kernal. But a good open-source core will be a nice starting point.
- taw9 14y agoHence, they wrote a MATH text. Duh.
- jpalomaki 14y agoMaybe the value is that you get quickly something that others can then start improving in small steps. I believe this kind of approach is good at solving the two main problems we usually face in projects: 1) Getting started 2) Delivering at least something
- brackin 14y agoMuch better than what I saw at a Hackathon earlier in the week. It was Tech and Art (Dev's and artists collaborating) which was a great event. Though one project was a 'Pastebin magazine' and consisted of them finding tweeted pastebin links, putting them in Word/Indesign and printing them out.
- danielharan 14y agoHow long until some of the translation startups get this in just about every language? (If you have contacts with one, please forward the idea. Come on HN, let's make this happen)
- itmag 14y agoIdea for startup: crowdfunded translation of open source content (including textbooks).
- perfunctory 14y agoHow long before we see "a group of doctors produces an open cancer cure in a weekend hackathon".
- antidoh 14y agoMaybe never. But how about "a group of doctors produces an open cancer cure in an ongoing collaboration." Like the linux kernel.
- protolif 14y agoY U NO i18n?
- BenoitEssiambre 14y agoI hope their effort bears fruit. Writing textbooks is long and tedious, more so than one would expect before actually sitting down and trying it. I had hoped to help it happen with a web app I launched this year: http://www.bookvoid.com/ http://www.bookvoid.com/ I however, haven't been able to attract any serious content creator.
- merlinsbrain 14y ago"Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute." - Abelson & Sussman, SICP, preface to the first edition We know as a fact this is not followed. Code in a hackathon is usually proof of concept for an idea, not launch ready code. Who needs a kernel/proof-of-concept math book with all the existing content out there? Do more harm than good IMO. Big plus point for the collaboration effort though, which probably would not have happened otherwise.
- Valhe 14y agoGood point, however, there are no free textbooks that are made by collaborative effort. This book is also free to edit, so teachers can take parts out, add parts and so on. This book is definitely written "for people to read". It is very clear and understandable. One could think that a text book written over one weekend is very messy and hard to read, but this was indeed not the case. The writers especially focused on making the book as easy to understand as possible.
- navs 14y agoThis is great! I've been telling my father to try something similar for Geology since textbooks are incredibly expensive in Fiji.
- Valhe 14y agoWow! I wish the best of luck for you!