Skip to content
npisenti edited this page Apr 9, 2012 · 1 revision

Here are some comments from my Dad -- not sure he totally understood that this wasn't an (exact remake/iteration) of previous learnstreams, but he had some useful ideas.

Comments on current UI

  • Lectures view -- "watch" button doesn't make sense on items, since you're already watching the lecture! Instead, something along the lines of "start from beginning of [cantor set]"
  • Sidebar should be minimize-able (kind of like the google maps sidebar)
  • Use bootstrap's adaptive sizing -- the site looks really dinky on a large monitor (this must've been what you were talking about, Ryan). Perhaps keep the navigation sidebar fixed, and have the content area just scale to fill the window... kinda like google maps again (resizing the window increases the size of the map...)??
  • Display the Rudin equation numbers when available.
  • In the navigation sidebar, show visually the estimated understanding of each item.
  • Visual feedback -- navbar tabs should be highlighted (ie, when in "lecture" or "study" mode, should have a cue for the active tab)
  • When the user clicks "study", should dump to a list of the things they are studying, instead of directly into exercises... allows for more anchoring of what they're about to do. Should be able to sort the items to study based on completion/mastery/etc.

New UI redesign...?

Instead of separating out the lectures layout, do everything in the current items/study layout. The sidebar is collapsible (like google maps). For watching complete lectures, we display the key definitions/proofs/theorems up top, but then bundle the video with Su's commentary/annotations below. My dad seemed to really like the previous features of people being able to submit their own notes/comments. Not sure I totally agree, though. But keeping it to Su's commentary with the video might be nice. I think he felt that watching the lecture clips associated with particular items needed the commentary by the side...

Another cool idea: have the video playing, with a digital "replica" of the blackboard as notes on the side. Sometimes it's really hard to see what's written... not sure how easy this would be to do, but popcorn.js might provide some nice tools.

Other thoughts

  • Implement some sort of StackOverflow knockoff -- crowd source questions/answers/comments, and have a reputation/voting system to filter out the crap.
  • He really liked the student note taking synced to the video. I suppose we've just got to decide what the role of Rudinium is... I'm inclined to keep it simple, unless we can make a compelling argument that note taking while watching the lectures boosts comprehension/retention of the material. But i'm honestly skeptical, unless we're talking about a more basic earmark/"Highlight" feature (see below).
  • The exercises/studying are too disjoint! Implement in-lecture testing again...?
  • Navigation sidebar -- how do we order the items? (current answer: by order they appear in lectures). Other ideas: based on "knowledge modules", or hierarchies on knowledge modules...
  • If people are using this to work towards tests/midterms/finals, could have a "competency test" after X number of lectures. This would just be to check and make sure the person was really on track to learning on a higher-synthesis level between items.

Relating to the "hierarchies on knowledge modules", here's an idea for a proscribed study order: We can probably score each item based on the completion of prerequisite items... something like "how likely is the student to understand concept X?" -- it might be interesting to investigate how that scoring maps to the user's self-rating. But, it should be easy enough to "rank" all of the items so that in general, items with a longer prerequisite chain come later in the ranking, and encourage students to study in that order.

"Highlight This"

"Highlight" feature -- As a student is watching the lecture, can click a button ("Highlight!") when there is something they want to revisit. If we divide the lectures into conceptual blocks (almost works like this already), the "highlight" button points to a conceptual block instead of a particular timestamp... make an interface to quickly navigate your highlights. Basically a way to earmark the video for later, plus the option to add some notes to the highlight. This would be separate from "studying" the near-by component.

Words and Language?

  • He suggested we think about co-opting more of the school language/vocabulary. Things like "study hall" or "group study", in addition to "lectures", "homework" etc. But I'd like a bigger feedback sample size first...
  • What can be gained by thinking about items in terms of "completion" versus "mastery"?
  • What about "lectures" vs. "modules of knowledge", as they relate to quizzes/midterms/finals... we could bundle concepts for a particular goal! Say a student wants to get a certain score on their next test (now, perhaps more general than just LSRu). Could provide study bundles to meet that goal, with concepts they need to master to do well on the test.