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An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS)

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  An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Cai Gengyang <gengyangcai@gmail.com> - 2016-05-09 23:13 -0700
    Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Joel Goldstick <joel.goldstick@gmail.com> - 2016-05-10 03:00 -0400
    Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2016-05-10 10:57 -0700
    Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2016-05-10 15:06 -0400
      Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Cai Gengyang <gengyangcai@gmail.com> - 2016-05-13 09:05 -0700
        Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2016-05-13 09:52 -0700
          Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Cai Gengyang <gengyangcai@gmail.com> - 2016-05-13 11:16 -0700
            Re: An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS) Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2016-05-13 11:42 -0700

#108451 — An educational site written in Python (from YCombinator's RFS)

Ok, so after reading YCombinator's RFS, I have decided that I want to work on this :


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDUCATION

If we can fix education, we can eventually do everything else on this list.
The first attempts to use technology to fix education have focused on using the Internet to distribute traditional content to a wider audience. This is good, but the Internet is a fundamentally different medium and capable of much more.

Solutions that combine the mass scale of technology with one-on-one in-person interaction are particularly interesting to us.

This may not require a "breakthrough" technology in the classical sense, but at a minimum it will require very new ways of doing things.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to create such a site using Python. What are the various steps I need to take to create such a site ? This is a big project, but one that is worth doing ... Any suggestions / help appreciated ? Thanks alot


Gengyang

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#108453

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 2:13 AM, Cai Gengyang <gengyangcai@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, so after reading YCombinator's RFS, I have decided that I want to work on this :
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> EDUCATION
>
> If we can fix education, we can eventually do everything else on this list.
> The first attempts to use technology to fix education have focused on using the Internet to distribute traditional content to a wider audience. This is good, but the Internet is a fundamentally different medium and capable of much more.
>
> Solutions that combine the mass scale of technology with one-on-one in-person interaction are particularly interesting to us.
>
> This may not require a "breakthrough" technology in the classical sense, but at a minimum it will require very new ways of doing things.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I want to create such a site using Python. What are the various steps I need to take to create such a site ? This is a big project, but one that is worth doing ... Any suggestions / help appreciated ? Thanks alot
>
>
> Gengyang
> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

I'm not sure there is a question here.  Good luck with your quest

-- 
Joel Goldstick
http://joelgoldstick.com/blog
http://cc-baseballstats.info/stats/birthdays

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#108479

On Tuesday, May 10, 2016 at 2:13:42 AM UTC-4, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> 
> EDUCATION
> 
> If we can fix education, we can eventually do everything else on this list.
> The first attempts to use technology to fix education have focused on using the Internet to distribute traditional content to a wider audience. This is good, but the Internet is a fundamentally different medium and capable of much more.
> 
> Solutions that combine the mass scale of technology with one-on-one in-person interaction are particularly interesting to us.
> 
> This may not require a "breakthrough" technology in the classical sense, but at a minimum it will require very new ways of doing things.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I want to create such a site using Python. What are the various steps I need to take to create such a site ? This is a big project, but one that is worth doing ... Any suggestions / help appreciated ? Thanks alot


If you want to join an existing project, Open edX is open-source Python/Django, and powers edx.org and 250 other sites around the world.  I'm guessing it isn't quite what this proposal is getting at, but the description here is very vague, so I'm not sure what they are getting at.

http://open.edx.org if you want to take a look.

--Ned.

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#108484

On 5/10/2016 2:13 AM, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> Ok, so after reading YCombinator's RFS, I have decided that I want to
> work on this :
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  EDUCATION
>
> If we can fix education, we can eventually do everything else on this
> list. The first attempts to use technology to fix education have
> focused on using the Internet to distribute traditional content to a
> wider audience. This is good, but the Internet is a fundamentally
> different medium and capable of much more.
>
> Solutions that combine the mass scale of technology with one-on-one
> in-person interaction are particularly interesting to us.

one room, one teacher, one student, and one web browser?



> This may not require a "breakthrough" technology in the classical
> sense, but at a minimum it will require very new ways of doing
> things.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  I want to create such a site using Python. What are the various
> steps I need to take to create such a site ? This is a big project,
> but one that is worth doing ... Any suggestions / help appreciated ?
> Thanks alot


When you say 'such a site' what do you envision?

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#108596

My "vision" if you will for this site is one which should have these basic functionalities :

1) A forum for students , educators, parents and lawyers to post and discuss issues about education, fees, admissions process , visa issues.

2) A search engine for users to well (search for stuff lol)

2) Puzzles , Quizzes, Games and Tests in various topics. (Make it dynamic, animated and really interesting , I mean, I really love math, physics and engineering but a lot of lecturers are just fucking boring to listen to if you know what I mean. (makes you feel like you want to punch something. It would be great if every lecturer and professor in the world was as eloquent as Christopher Hitchens or as funny as Bill Maher, but especially in the hard sciences and math, alot of the lecturers are extremely smart but also very boring to listen to.

3) A live online discussion forum where users can discuss and chat see each other in real-time with a live video thingy (i don't know what its called) with some translator to help translate foreign accents and help users from different countries communicate properly. Imagine you are a poor genius amateur mathematician from Sudan who has just found a partial proof to the Riemann Hypothesis and you want to discuss it live in person over the internet with other math enthusiasts but can't speak English. A live translator that translates what you are speaking in real-time (if such a thing were possible, I have no idea) would be a good idea to create

4) A system to help parents connect with tutors whom they want to hire for their kids. I have no idea what the tutoring industry is like in other countries , but its a huge industry in Singapore with its super "kiasu" parents). There are already several such sites available, but I guess I could clone them and build them with different design (there can be infinite types of design, so its not like a zero-sum game). Especially as the population grows , there's likely to be more demand for these kind of sites and services. Alot of websites have very poor generic design and are unappealing to look at. 

edx.org is a great example , perhaps a competitor / clone with different functionalities and better design , more videos, graphics , more interactive 







On Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at 3:07:17 AM UTC+8, DFS wrote:
> On 5/10/2016 2:13 AM, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> > Ok, so after reading YCombinator's RFS, I have decided that I want to
> > work on this :
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >  EDUCATION
> >
> > If we can fix education, we can eventually do everything else on this
> > list. The first attempts to use technology to fix education have
> > focused on using the Internet to distribute traditional content to a
> > wider audience. This is good, but the Internet is a fundamentally
> > different medium and capable of much more.
> >
> > Solutions that combine the mass scale of technology with one-on-one
> > in-person interaction are particularly interesting to us.
> 
> one room, one teacher, one student, and one web browser?
> 
> 
> 
> > This may not require a "breakthrough" technology in the classical
> > sense, but at a minimum it will require very new ways of doing
> > things.
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >  I want to create such a site using Python. What are the various
> > steps I need to take to create such a site ? This is a big project,
> > but one that is worth doing ... Any suggestions / help appreciated ?
> > Thanks alot
> 
> 
> When you say 'such a site' what do you envision?

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#108603

On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 12:05:33 PM UTC-4, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> edx.org is a great example , perhaps a competitor / clone with different functionalities and better design , more videos, graphics , more interactive 

As I mentioned in a previous reply, edx.org runs on Open edX, which is
open source, written in Python.  There's no need for a competitor/clone,
you can use it as a starting point, and improve it how you like.

The content is completely up to the course designer, you can include
whatever videos or graphics you like.  For interactives, we have have
the XBlock API which lets you create new courseware components that
work however you like.

--Ned.

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#108608

Ned, 

At the risk of sounding like a naggy grandmother, I am not trying to argue with you (since it is pointless arguing over the internet with a stranger whom i don't know and I hate arguing) but It is important to note that whether there is a need/demand for a competitor or clone is not up to you or me to decide, it is up to the market and users to decide. If following your logic that there is no need for competition, then we would only have 1 search engine in the world. It is competition that creates real wealth in the world and improvement in people's lives. Before Google, there were already tons of search engines in existence like Yahoo and Altavista that had hundreds of millions if not billions of users. I am not sure exactly what special "sauce" that Google had that made it scale so fast so successfully and become the dominant search engine over others , but the point I was simply trying to make is that competition is a great thing in the free market, and that users are always willing to switch or use a new alternative if it is significantly better / different or novel (different design). Very few things are totally novel ... most technologies are copycats of one another. Even Steve Jobs, whom many would describe as the most creative tech innovator for the past 20 or 30 years probably stole / copied / cloned his ideas for his many inventions from various other sources (while constantly whining and accusing Microsoft and Bill Gates of ripping off his ideas lol). Amongst the "educational startup" sector, there are also several up and coming sites : http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/16-startups-that-will-disrupt-the-education-market.html and I predict that there will be demand for more similar sites in the future by users 


As Paul Graham mentioned : "Startups are often ruthless competitors, but they're competing in a game won by making what people want."


On Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 12:52:58 AM UTC+8, Ned Batchelder wrote:
> On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 12:05:33 PM UTC-4, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> > edx.org is a great example , perhaps a competitor / clone with different functionalities and better design , more videos, graphics , more interactive 
> 
> As I mentioned in a previous reply, edx.org runs on Open edX, which is
> open source, written in Python.  There's no need for a competitor/clone,
> you can use it as a starting point, and improve it how you like.
> 
> The content is completely up to the course designer, you can include
> whatever videos or graphics you like.  For interactives, we have have
> the XBlock API which lets you create new courseware components that
> work however you like.
> 
> --Ned.

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#108610

On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 2:16:37 PM UTC-4, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> Ned, 
> 
> At the risk of sounding like a naggy grandmother, I am not trying to argue with you (since it is pointless arguing over the internet with a stranger whom i don't know and I hate arguing) but It is important to note that whether there is a need/demand for a competitor or clone is not up to you or me to decide, it is up to the market and users to decide. If following your logic that there is no need for competition, then we would only have 1 search engine in the world. It is competition that creates real wealth in the world and improvement in people's lives. Before Google, there were already tons of search engines in existence like Yahoo and Altavista that had hundreds of millions if not billions of users. I am not sure exactly what special "sauce" that Google had that made it scale so fast so successfully and become the dominant search engine over others , but the point I was simply trying to make is that competition is a great thing in the free market, and that users are always willing to switch or use a new alternative if it is significantly better / different or novel (different design). Very few things are totally novel ... most technologies are copycats of one another. Even Steve Jobs, whom many would describe as the most creative tech innovator for the past 20 or 30 years probably stole / copied / cloned his ideas for his many inventions from various other sources (while constantly whining and accusing Microsoft and Bill Gates of ripping off his ideas lol). Amongst the "educational startup" sector, there are also several up and coming sites : http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/16-startups-that-will-disrupt-the-education-market.html and I predict that there will be demand for more similar sites in the future by users 

Sorry I wasn't clear.  I certainly didn't mean to squelch competition,
and I'm not looking to argue.  I just wanted to make sure you understood
the Open edX option.

I wish you all the best.  More and better educational sites will be good
for the world.

--Ned.

> 
> 
> As Paul Graham mentioned : "Startups are often ruthless competitors, but they're competing in a game won by making what people want."
> 
> 
> On Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 12:52:58 AM UTC+8, Ned Batchelder wrote:
> > On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 12:05:33 PM UTC-4, Cai Gengyang wrote:
> > > edx.org is a great example , perhaps a competitor / clone with different functionalities and better design , more videos, graphics , more interactive 
> > 
> > As I mentioned in a previous reply, edx.org runs on Open edX, which is
> > open source, written in Python.  There's no need for a competitor/clone,
> > you can use it as a starting point, and improve it how you like.
> > 
> > The content is completely up to the course designer, you can include
> > whatever videos or graphics you like.  For interactives, we have have
> > the XBlock API which lets you create new courseware components that
> > work however you like.
> > 
> > --Ned.

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