2023 Stanford EDUC432

 from Red Blob Games
8 Feb 2023

 1  about me#

 2  explorable explanations#

mathematical, scientific, and even literary ideas.”

 3  audience#

 4  scope#

I am not trying to make something that works for everyone. I’m specifically adding interactivity to the static diagrams in my tutorials.

https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zB5wf5crA1jVZb6CycZSjGRTjSkw2BpsdjG[3] - Andy Matuschak says that explorable explanations are primarily about an author explaining something and don’t serve as a tool that people can use to think themselves → this is ok with me, as I’m not trying to build a tool for practitioners

https://jeremykun.com/2020/05/17/musings-on-a-new-interface-for-mathematics/[4] - as a tool for mathematicians

 5  page structure#

 6  design#

 7  criticisms#

https://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/a-star/main-loop.html[5]

sliminality on twitter https://twitter.com/sliminality/status/1495527059011289090[6] “Explorable explanations don’t scale and are often primarily for the benefit/enjoyment of people who already understand the concept”

Also it’s implemented with my structure and not your own graph structure. Compare to pythontutor

 8  implementation#

keep it simple! explorables take a lot of work so I want to start as simple as possible

 9  other#

WEB Michael Nielsen talks about putting stuff on the web instead of print https://sparcopen.org/impact-story/open-access-impact-michael-nielsen-reached-3-5m-readers/[9]

comparisons, or all of history, or future history

https://www.redblobgames.com/[10]https://ciechanow.ski/[11] - broad audience, document style https://ncase.me/trust/[12] - broad audience, game style https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/[13] - specific audience, document style http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/[14] - definition of explorable explanations https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/circuit-construction-kit-ac/latest/circuit-construction-kit-ac_en.html[15] - example of a sandbox, doesn’t match Bret’s definition, needs teacher to provide explanation

https://mathigon.org/course/transformations/rigid[16] - gated content, good for schools https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/probability/damage-rolls.html[17] - textbook style, start simple and work up https://www.redblobgames.com/maps/terrain-from-noise/[18] - use first page to get reader to think about whether this is the right page for them https://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/a-star/introduction.html[19] - show diagrams side by side (reduced interaction) https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/visibility/[20] - diagrams aren’t always about you implementing the solution, but also can be about concepts the reader needs to implement their own http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/[21] - some diagrams interactive, but not all! https://idyll-lang.org/gallery[22] - tool for making explorable explanations http://aprt.us/[23] - tool for making interactive diagrams https://v2.vuejs.org/v2/guide/[24] - the tool I use most often flow-paths.png - when pages get complex you have to think about what affects what https://observablehq.com/@redblobgames/incremental-interactivity[25] - demo of a simple interactive diagram using svg, starting from a non interactive diagram and adding interactivity to it

https://doc.cinderella.de/tiki-index.php?page=Theoretical+Background[26] - interactive diagrams have some challenges: continuity, special cases

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/acp.1345[27] - learner-controlled animations were more effective than system-controlled animations even when the learner didn’t use the stop/play buttons

“Active video” - trying to make video into a more active medium by adding in text http://glench.com/EyesOnThePrize/[28] – I found that I mostly read the text and let the video play out of sync with what I was reading - Glen Chiacchieri

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