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Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

mathigon.org

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Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#81

Post by ai_ia »

justinclift wrote: post #80
ai_ia wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am building Primer. :) https://www.primerlabs.io You can checkout the documentation part for images/gifs to learn how it works. Bit late on schedule, but working hard to release soon. Made a video about the same explaining the interface. https://youtu.be/acTdwGV0s9I P.S. The landing page is a horrible experience on mobile. My bad.

Guess it's not going to be OSS?

If you are referring the course content creation. Well, I have thought about it.

In the initial stages, No.

You would want to have control over the content to 1. Update / Iterate it faster 2. Sense of continuity when switching from one course to successive one.

One of the problem, I have personally felt is the abundance of video based courses for a single topic. And none whatsoever for a deeper topic.

When you jump from one video-based course to another, then you either feel there is a bit of overlap or a bit of skip of content. This is due to different university teaching style and syllabus.

Self-learning online today, basically feels a bit disorganized. You need to scourge through the entire internet to find good resources. A lot of people have created wonderful platforms ("awesome" repos, Learn-anything.xyz etc) to curate those resources and my experience has been opposite when I encounter these resources.

I need one good resource, not 10+ resources to learn about a topic. And when I do complete a course, I feel I am missing out by not completing other good resource. This might be only a personal experience though.

The D.R.Y. Principle I wrote in the website, basically means, you don't need to waste effort studying something you have already covered. The teaching style will be uniform. And you can scale deeply. Kind of a like an endless book that keeps on adding new updated things for you to learn more. It is easier when you are in charge of course creation.

That being said, all the Course Notebooks, will be available free for everyone. Anyone can read what Primer is trying to teach without spending a penny.

Also, I don't have a fixed plan. Everything is based on this hypothesis that Conversational Learning is better for self-studying than video based courses. Given we are able to prove by putting Computer Science Resources by the end of the year, then we can discuss about what would be the best way forward.

Hope it makes sense.

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#82

Post by Grue3 »

neatcoder wrote: post #67
octahedron42 wrote: post #17

I love the chapter on fibonacci numbers. So colourful! https://mathigon.org/course/sequences/fibonacci

When we go from 2 pairs of rabbits to 3 pairs of rabbits, we see a brother and sister rabbit mating to produce a pair of offsprings. This does not sound realistic and could also be disturbing to kids. But for some reason, I have seen this example cited in many places. Why is this example so popular despite the implication of siblings mating while going from 2 to 3? Surely, we can come up with better illustrations if…

Because the growth of a population of rabbits is the exact problem Fibonacci studied to come up with his sequence! It has historical appeal.

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#83

Post by justinclift »

ai_ia wrote: post #81
justinclift wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess it's not going to be OSS?

If you are referring the course content creation. Well, I have thought about it. In the initial stages, No. You would want to have control over the content to 1. Update / Iterate it faster 2. Sense of continuity when switching from one course to successive one. One of the problem, I have personally felt is the abundance of video based courses for a single topic. And none whatsoever for a deeper topic. When you jump f…

> You would want to have control over the content ...

Ahhh. Personally, I tend to think of OSS as not really taking away control of stuff, as more enabling interested people to collaborate and get involved.

eg surajs below seems like a potential candidate

That being said, it's not the only way to enable such collaboration. :)

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#85

Post by ai_ia »

justinclift wrote: post #83
ai_ia wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are referring the course content creation. Well, I have thought about it. In the initial stages, No. You would want to have control over the content to 1. Update / Iterate it faster 2. Sense of continuity when switching from one course to successive one. One of the problem, I have personally felt is the abundance of video based courses for a single topic. And none whatsoever for a deeper topic. When you jump f…

> You would want to have control over the content ... Ahhh. Personally, I tend to think of OSS as not really taking away control of stuff, as more enabling interested people to collaborate and get involved. eg surajs below seems like a potential candidate That being said, it's not the only way to enable such collaboration. :)

Oh. I understand you completely.

Right now, I am focusing on shipping as soon as possible. After that, I would definitely be spending time figuring out how can I involve people who are interested.

But I must confess, I don't really fully understand what I am trying to do and also didn't realize that many people would be interested in Primer, though.

It has been like a little side-project that took over my life. So, I have put these little milestones to keep on track.

Thanks for your insight, Justin.

I would be more than happy to understand how to enable such collaboration.

If you can mail me your thoughts at admin[at]primerlabs.io, I would be grateful.

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#86

Post by Natanael_L »

solipsism wrote: post #13
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur. While I appreciate that math education at the elementary and high school level is easier to author and has more data points, where I think this approach would really shine is at the college level. The main problem in math is that the higher level you reach, the fewer experts who exist or are willing to sit down 1:1 and tutor students. I think an automated teaching system for analysis, writing proofs, number…

IMO most college level math isn't difficult Don't make the mistake of assuming the entire world is like you. Plenty of people struggle with lower level math. What makes you think the concepts are not difficult for them, and to blame only the teaching?

For most people I'm certain the problem is to translate it into logic expressions they understand naturally.

It's the same as how most people fail to correctly apply basic logic when presented with arbitary problems and immediately succeed when presented with a human context of person A did X.

All these low level problems needs ways to help people to generalize their existing intuition.

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#87

Post by Vaskivo »

ai_ia wrote: post #24
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #6

It really feels like we're on the cusp of a textbook similar to the Primer in Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'. As in, something that learns your interests and customizes to your tastes while still teaching. A textbook that is able to diagnose common misunderstandings from a set of wrong answers to a problem set and evolve its teaching methods. If advertising networks have ef…

I am building Primer. :) https://www.primerlabs.io You can checkout the documentation part for images/gifs to learn how it works. Bit late on schedule, but working hard to release soon. Made a video about the same explaining the interface. https://youtu.be/acTdwGV0s9I P.S. The landing page is a horrible experience on mobile. My bad.

Is that a Diamond Age reference? (the Neal Stephenson book)

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#88

Post by ai_ia »

Vaskivo wrote: post #87
ai_ia wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am building Primer. :) https://www.primerlabs.io You can checkout the documentation part for images/gifs to learn how it works. Bit late on schedule, but working hard to release soon. Made a video about the same explaining the interface. https://youtu.be/acTdwGV0s9I P.S. The landing page is a horrible experience on mobile. My bad.

Is that a Diamond Age reference? (the Neal Stephenson book)

Yep.

If you check the parent comment, I posted in reply to this comment.

> It really feels like we're on the cusp of a textbook similar to the Primer in Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'.

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#89

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

I didn't look into this yet as much as I'd like to -- especially before commenting -- but I did want to give you the feedback that I've been DYING for an entertaining, informative, and quick way to learn stats. YouTube videos are nice, especially Open Courseware, but I don't think it's enough. I like your story telling angle -- think that's really important.

Re: Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook

#90

Post by itissid »

Secretmapper wrote: post #64
itissid wrote: post #27

This looks awesome. But: 1. Grain of salt: contemporary research shows how learning has other facets that are also important like grit[1] (i.e. repetitive application of hard work that has the right direction). 2. Contemporary research suggests that when learning a new concept is made "easier" using such methods its more efficient. On the contrary this is only the first step. Learning is better when its harder, but h…

Can you expound on your third point? I'm having a hard time parsing it.

Have a look at Chapter 6 in the Make It Stick book.
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