I would have thought it's obvious to anyone who has studied any subject in depth that you need to actively engage with the material. Books are great because they go at the pace that suits your learning and are easy to skip around. Video not so much.
The proposed replacements seem to be technology that takes some of the active role away from the student. That doesn't seem to me that it would be effective, as anything I've learned well has required I do that kind of active introspection. Off-loading it to a machine feels like it would harm my learning.
Also, very typical of software people to reach for software solutions. There is a much wider space that can be explored. Maybe that would be more fruitful?
This is well written. And it doesn't even focus on AI, which is rare these days. However, I don't fully agree that AI and the interaction it brings are just as flawed. I think used correctly, it will be a big help. Of course, like you mentioned it misses the social and emotional connection, but so do textbooks, and the interaction component is much better. To use your own words, it can lower the burden of metacognition significantly. It can handle the learning path and what exercise to handle when. Maybe even informed upfront by the author. Love it or hate it, I think there is a lot to gain in terms of human learning support in the field of LLMs.
> This article is my response to Andy Matuschak’s article Why books don’t work (https://andymatuschak.org/books/). If you haven’t please read it first. However, if you want you can read this article now. I believe the following content should still make sense.
I would have thought it's obvious to anyone who has studied any subject in depth that you need to actively engage with the material. Books are great because they go at the pace that suits your learning and are easy to skip around. Video not so much.
The proposed replacements seem to be technology that takes some of the active role away from the student. That doesn't seem to me that it would be effective, as anything I've learned well has required I do that kind of active introspection. Off-loading it to a machine feels like it would harm my learning.
Also, very typical of software people to reach for software solutions. There is a much wider space that can be explored. Maybe that would be more fruitful?
This is well written. And it doesn't even focus on AI, which is rare these days. However, I don't fully agree that AI and the interaction it brings are just as flawed. I think used correctly, it will be a big help. Of course, like you mentioned it misses the social and emotional connection, but so do textbooks, and the interaction component is much better. To use your own words, it can lower the burden of metacognition significantly. It can handle the learning path and what exercise to handle when. Maybe even informed upfront by the author. Love it or hate it, I think there is a lot to gain in terms of human learning support in the field of LLMs.
> This article is my response to Andy Matuschak’s article Why books don’t work (https://andymatuschak.org/books/). If you haven’t please read it first. However, if you want you can read this article now. I believe the following content should still make sense.