With respect to Wikipedia mathematical articles I find that often simple mathematical concepts are not explained well. The information is not wrong, just expressed in professional mathematical jargon. A book like "All the Math You'll Ever Need" does much better. Wikipedia editors are nearly always amateur editors, although they may be enrolled in sophomore mathematics classes. A good textbook, or Wikipedia article requires a skilled teacher who can gradually introduce the reader to the concepts, and jargon of mathematics.
Fred Bauder > So far, the best phrasing I've come up with is: "What stands in the > way of building and supplying low-cost, high-quality mathematics > education via the internet?" > > The art of encyclopedia-building doesn't seem to carry over directly > to education. This should be of fairly general concern (the Wikimedia > Foundation's mission is about developing and disseminating educational > content). > > I think there's a knowledge gap in there, maybe more than one. It's > much easier for me to think about "engineering solutions" than it is > to precisely specify a research problem question!! In particular, I'm > thinking about > > (a) building interactive textbooks that work for self-guided learners > (b) building technologies to support live tutorials over the web > (c) building infrastructure to help in developing good survey articles > or similar content > > The faculty here might want me to "pick one", but this is hard for me > to do because I see each of these three approaches as being part of > the puzzle. Asking how well one of them works in absence of the other > is a bit like asking how well a fish can breathe in the absence of > water. > > So maybe the "research question" is about asking: What is the family > resemblance of (a)-(c)? How do they work together as a system? Or > maybe the question is about whether a given implementation of (a)-(c) > shows any promise? > > I seem to be struggling to switch from a hacking-oriented way of > thinking about things to a research-oriented way of thinking about > things. I'd appreciate some feedback from those of you in a position > to offer advice on these matters. > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
