Somebody should create something that takes the time loss opportunity cost out of self-education on the internet!
What I mean by this is--I presently spend a lot of time discovering materials and formulating various sources of information for personal curriculum mapping. I am looking for your input on the product market fit for such a platform (browser add-on or web app) and have a few points:
For me at least, learning about something is not as simple as just purchasing a book or watching a video. I recently took up the relaxing hobby of growing Carolina Reaper peppers on my roof in Medellin, Colombia. I probably have read 10 or so online posts, watched at least 6 or 7 videos, and purchased one book to try and become an expert on the subject matter.
However, in the process I lost a lot of time that I could have spent learning or picking something else up. Many of the materials I found were not in the correct order. For example, you have to have construction instructions on specific planters whether it is a germination stage or during later plant growth. Also, some of the advice was contradicted from one source to the next, so I ended up fact checking a lot of things to try and make the best decisions during my endeavor. Some of the videos I watched could have had the time stamp sped up to avoid repeating similar information if watching the videos in a specific order.
When I watch videos on Youtube or read your articles on other topics, sometimes I do wish everything was organized in some sort of track (from zero to expert).
I understand that many readers are casually learning about topics or just dipping their feet in the water to learn more, but the highly curious people want to sometimes go as far as they can go to become experts on a subject matter. Also, I do understand that a lot of learning in real world requires hands-on action.
I just want a place where people could maybe publicly submit entire maps or curriculum to help people advance in subjects without wasting time or losing interest. For the most part, all information seems to be out there, but it lacks really meaningful continuity to keep the masses focused to complete things--we always see huge drop-off rates on open education videos on Youtube.
In my opinion, somebody could create entire design-able tracks or curriculum maps combining open learning classes from different institutions along with assigned reading and videos as supplements. If you really wanted to make this cool, you could create entire degree curricula from materials solely available online!
Let me know if you have any ideas or input below... I am highly curious about what you think. One last thing to think about: Online food recipes are specific, instructional, and geared towards the masses completing the task at hand--and they generally work. The inefficient structure in the presentation of other types of content maybe is leading to discontinuous idea formation and eventual disinterest.
Also: quora typically answers 1 question at a time, then you have to ask another one--Wikipedia has lots of information, but you will again encounter advanced information that may require many basic foundations to truly grasp the later material. Youtube is an endless search engine of video material at all sorts of levels and depths. How-to websites are typically for diy projects or smaller tasks. I have not found a place anywhere that combines open source curricula from universities, great blog snippets, youtube videos, articles, book recommendations, etc. for a search-specific topic--creating a curriculum map to become whichever level you would like...