Rails - Jan 2011 - Adaptive Learning for Ruby on Rails

Hey all,

As part of the Lean Startup Machine weekend, my group and I are
examining the topic of adaptive learning.

When I began learning Rails several years ago, it was hard to find
content written for me, the beginner. Sometimes I found a great
introduction to a topic; other times the links would be over my head
and too difficult.

Now I have a bit of the opposite problem: I''ll look for some advanced
topics on Rails 3 and Mountable Applications and find the basic
information duplicated across various posts and links.

Have you had this problem before? Do you ever struggle with a topic
and say "I''d love to learn more but this is too hard", or
"c''mon,
bring on something more challenging!".

If so, would a solution that can adapt as you use it be interesting?
Is it something you''d pay for if you could have it today?

Thanks much for any thoughts and comments.

Jack

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It seems to me that it would be hard to target users with such a wide 
range of experiences (beginner to expert). I''m not familiar with 
adaptive learning techniques, but if I''m a moderate level user, I 
wouldn''t want to sit through too much beginner level stuff to get 
through to the more advanced levels.

As far as paying for a service. I think that most users would have to 
consume a lot of your product before they''re willing to pay for 
something. Look at Michael Hartl''s Rails Tutorial. He''s giving
away the
content for a high quality book for free in order to generate a user 
base. If Railscasts had started out as a pay site, I don''t think it 
would be as popular as it is today. But if Ryan Bates started doing 
advanced level episodes for pay today, then I''d probably sign up.

I guess when I''m hacking all day at the computer and I run into a 
problem, I''ll be googling for quick answers and be unlikely to take
time
out for a involved tutorial. My brain expects short, quickly consumable 
information from the internet. When I want to learn something in depth, 
I still like a good book to take some time away from looking at a 
computer screen.

Good luck.

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