Books should be deprecated and PDF outlawed
http://inference.org.uk/itila/book.html
UK PDF link OK, Canada broken. “On-screen viewing permitted. Printing not permitted.” is a good policy for sharing.
But in PDF this material is a bit out of date and mostly fragmented and inaccessible. It looks almost identical to my texts from 50 years ago.
There are lots of small comments and hints inserted in the text, things that might stand out in a classroom or teaching video series. But better would be tools, examples and a “living AI guide” to apply this and explore the real world – together.
Teaching by “word of mouth” or “talking heads” or “symbols on paper that have to be read by eyeball, converted into tools again, and not enough data and information provided to do that” is the wrong way for the future. You need to stand alongside the new ones (they can be any age now) and be ready to move on a dime.
There are lots of personal notes and sharing of experience and “how I learned”. It is more personal than many texts and papers. But it is still “text” and not “working real things out together” or “let’s tackle hard problems together now”.
It cries out for “interactive case analysis” and “living online tools to do real things”. But it is “ink on paper or screen”.
Filed as (Books should be deprecated and PDF outlawed)
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
