Personalized Education -- how would you do it?
Each student is different. So why not provide a web service that personalizes a topic to each student so as to maximize learning in the shortest time possible?
How would you build something like that?
How would you build something like that?
For instance, given the article about the Heine-Borel theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heine-Borel_theorem) I'd love to know which articles I'd have to read before it will start to make sense.
About personalized education: I think it's going to be huge, (good human teachers will always be better, but who can afford private sessions with good teachers?). I'm working on it as well.
But you need a lot of knowledge about the domain you're teaching, apart from all the usual technical bagage. Finding co-founders or employees with both these skills is awfully hard.
Anyone know of such a place?
Telling me I need to take 10 minutes of tests for a site to be able to provide value isn't going to be an easy sell.
People LOVE those kinds of tests. Just look at all the ones on LiveJournal and OK Cupid. "Tell me about ME!!!"
See for instance: http://www.pitt.edu/~vanlehn/
They have pages of completed projects toward the bottom that may help you generate some ideas.
Just present all the material and they can skip ahead as warranted. But books tend to be better at reinforcement than introduction; e.g. go out in the field with a paleontology dig and you'll probably remember stuff you learn much better because of the associations with all your senses at once.
I often note important but subtle points in material when re-reading on a subject after personal experience, which I missed when reading the same thing previously. In the repeat case I now have references, and the written word causes those experiences to spring forth from whichever compartment of my mind contained them, whereupon I can hold up the new piece of information to see how it fits, compare it to what's already there, add it in, and then pack the whole thing back up.
The best way to teach someone is to get them as engaged as possible through as many avenues into their brain as possible. You can read about elephants all you want but there's no substitute for meeting one in person.