Edbook

In recent years I have developed an open system for lecture notes called Edbook, which is hosted on edbook.hi.is.

All the code can be found on github.com/edbook.

What is Edbook?

Edbook consists of Sphinx (http://sphinx-doc.org, originally written for Python documentation) along with extensions and configurations which are suitable for course material in mathematics and other subjects.

The material is written in the markup language reStructuredText and the output can be a html-page (like this), pdf-file (via LaTeX, see stae104g.pdf), epub e-book and slides.

Goal

Purpose

The main purpose is to present course material for big courses (in mathematics) with interactive applets.

The goal is to make students more active in lectures and help them understand difficult concepts there. By presenting the course material as a homepage it is both possible to use it both in lectures and outside of them. Also, by using interactive applets the plan is to increase the students part and promote active learning.

Why not slides?

Traditional lectures with slides tend to have a superficial approach, specially in mathematics where we work with complicated concepts which need a very precise approach. Also, they don’t give students a big role in the lecture, they are powerless and will possibly have troubles connecting the lecture/slides to other parts of the course (e.g. book, homework assignments, etc.).

Bonus

Can we study students behavior? What do they read and what do they not read?