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Learn Anything White Paper

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Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#21

Hey this looks really cool. Are you familiar with Metacademy? ( https://metacademy.org/ ) (previously on HN: 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…

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-wi...

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#22
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

[2] http://multithreaded.link/course/mid-century-modern-furnitur...

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#24
I had a look at 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.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#25
post #24

I had a look at 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.

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) 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.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#26
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.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#27
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/

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#28
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/) on my PC and phone, following Wozniak's Rules of Formulating Knowledge (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.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#30

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 yesterd…

Please take some time to expand the README and a few screenshots, perhaps. :-)
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