[HN Gopher] Show HN: Primer- I made a free Conversational Python...
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Show HN: Primer- I made a free Conversational Python Course
Author : ai_ia
Score : 15 points
Date : 2021-07-19 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (primerlabs.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (primerlabs.io)
| [deleted]
| ai_ia wrote:
| Greetings HN,
|
| I am Siddharth, the founder of Primerlabs. I have been working to
| create a new learning medium called Primer explicitly designed
| for self-learners or auto-didacts. You can think of Primer as a
| book that talks.
|
| The problem that Primer solves is: How can one learn difficult
| things on their own without the aid of a human tutor?[1]
|
| Learning independently is a complex problem because of the time
| and effort it takes to truly understand something. Without any
| external pressure or deadlines, self-taught learning journeys
| often get abruptly stopped in the face of the first sign of an
| obstacle. Anyone who has attempted to learn something
| independently will quickly realize that learning isn't simply
| reading a book on a subject or watching a playlist. You have to
| memorize information, review things from time to time, work on a
| project trying to utilize the newly acquired knowledge so on and
| so forth.
|
| I faced this exact problem in 2015 when I was in the last year of
| my college and decided to learn computer science on my own. I
| watched video lectures, read recommended books, made flashcards
| using Anki, did the assignment/quizzes, etc. I found the process
| of learning online quite cumbersome. Note that this was in
| college, where I had lots of free time. When I started my first
| job, it became more difficult as I had lesser time.
|
| I realized that the process of learning on your own is not as
| straightforward as it seems. Therefore, I decided to put my
| thoughts into how we can design a better learning interface.
| There are only three main problems that a learning medium must
| solve for effective learning for learners. The Problem of
| Attention The Problem of Reflection The Problem of Retention
|
| Primer is designed to solve these three problems. Primer is not
| an AI Chatbot. I wrote a whitepaper[2] describing how we can
| create a dialog-based tutor without AI back in 2018, and Primer
| follows mostly the same way described. Primer is a better book
| than a better MOOC.
|
| The way Primer work is the following: First, you have a
| conversation with Primer. You can respond using a button or
| sometimes text inputs. There are also quizzes such as MCQ,
| Reorders in the middle of the conversation, which you have to
| complete to proceed. You can add notes and questions right into
| the platform.
|
| You will soon notice that Primer doesn't understand your text-
| based responses. It might feel useless to reply, but your
| responses make an essential part of the platform. When you
| revisit a completed topic, you will find that your responses help
| you recover and recall what you have learned. Also, your
| responses and notes, questions are added to your personalized
| notebook. You can check a sample personalized notebook here.[3]
|
| Your responses and notes form what I call the _memory
| breadcrumbs_ which help you retain and recover information
| better. Check out this comic-based post [4] I have written to
| understand the idea better. Thoughtful responses make better
| memory breadcrumbs.
|
| Another thing I would like to point out is courses on Primer can
| never be completed. Well, you can finish them, but I would like
| you to think about them as unfinished projects that you will have
| to revisit multiple times to truly understand.
|
| Those familiar with Neal Stephenson's work The Diamond Age will
| find the name and nature of the project quite apt. The second
| biggest inspiration for working on Primer comes from a short
| story written by Scott Alexander. _Ars Longa, Vita Brevis_.[5]
| Primerlabs intends to be a group of people who continually strive
| to simplify ever-increasing complex human knowledge and make it
| accessible to those who desire to learn.
|
| The first course released is on Python, which is completely free.
| It's a 440-page book that you can complete in around 12-15 hours
| on Primer. Had it been a video-based course, it would have easily
| crossed 60 hours. Primer accelerates knowledge acquisition.
|
| The purpose of today's post is to demonstrate Primer medium
| rather than the Python Programming course. You can even say that
| the _medium is the message_.
|
| My hope for Primer is that it has a similar effect to Personal
| Knowledge Management as Bootstrap did for CSS designing. Rather
| than starting from scratch and typing out each equation and code,
| you start with a basic set of information and build upon it.
|
| Please feel free to give feedback on Primer and let me know how
| to make it more useful for you.
|
| Tl;dr? Here is a Twitter thread:
| https://twitter.com/_Wzard/status/1416500216832806912
|
| [1]: Similar to Bloom's Two Sigma Problem.
|
| [2]:
| https://github.com/PrimerLabs/Whitepaper/blob/master/article...
|
| [3]: Sample Personalized Notebook:
| https://assets.primerlabs.io/Python-1/Personalized+Python+-+...
|
| [4]: Memory Breadcrumbs Comics:
| https://primerlabs.io/comics/memory-breadcrumbs-comics/
|
| [5]: Ars Longa, Vita Brevis:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Great idea IMO.
|
| Hopefully you know about scrimba (https://scrimba.com/) which is
| probably similar in goals but has a different approach, you watch
| a coding tutorial then you can pause the video and edit the code
| (the instructor will ask you to do this).
|
| An interesting choice they made for the main exercises is every
| time you do one you start with a blank editor and type the same
| import statements etc. to build memory.
|
| I think your methods here are interesting and generalise beyond
| programming.
|
| I love to see innovation in this area so hoping you do well!
| ai_ia wrote:
| Thank you for your response. I do know scrimba and love their
| product as well.
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