
Interactive Mind Map for learning - ratancs
https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map
======
diziet
In my opinion, Mind Maps are not great for organizing information, learning
things or keeping track of things. Notice how the Github read-me itself is
formed like a Table of Contents. Table of Contents (or other organized lists)
are better for organizing your information and placing it in thematically
similar topics, etc.

In cases where you're presenting or recalling information, the more linear
narrative of a Table of Contents is superior. Use your brain's natural
triggered associations to tie subjects together or to recall related topics,
and use hard-copy writing to commit concrete, factual and clear information to
that 'external' memory.

There is a reason that we've been using TOC like structures much more than
Mind Maps. Mind Maps are terrible. We use TOCs, concrete lists, tools like
Universal Decimal Classification and Dewey Decimal Classification to organize
information, because they work and cover up the weak areas that human brains
have.

Google Image search "Mind Map". You will see colorful distracting pictures
like this:
[https://www.mindtools.com/media/Diagrams/mindmap.jpg](https://www.mindtools.com/media/Diagrams/mindmap.jpg)

If you want random associations, follow links on the web. Browse Wikipedia,
open new random tabs. Learn new topics, discover new interesting things! Just
don't use Mind Maps.

~~~
neurocroc
Author of the project here.

I do agree with you that mind maps have their flaws and limitations. But I
found most curated list and most content in general to be quite rigid in
structure. These mind maps should let the users explore and be guided through
arrows.

And the big problem that I find is that google and other search engines are a
black box. You have to know what you want to ask for to get an answer. The
poses a big problem because many don't know what to ask.

Wikipedia is great too but I found it to lack in the visualisation aspect.
Everything is connected but many people don't know exactly how and where and
with what it is connected. These kinds of visualisations are very popular on
the internet ([https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-
roadmap](https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap) is one example)
because they do bring clarity as to what it is the person doesn't know.
However this repository although great, it just shows an image.

With these mind maps I can replicate the same but make it interactive. Now
users can not only see what they don't know, but if they do want to learn it,
they don't have to waste time online finding resources, they just click on a
link and see what the best way of learning the topic is. If any questions
arise when they are learning the content, then the search engine of their
choice will answer these questions.

I also try to solve the problem of dependencies of knowledge. For example if
user wants to learn 'machine learning'. I show that machine learning requires
knowledge of statistics and linear algebra
([http://i.imgur.com/A75JMNt.png](http://i.imgur.com/A75JMNt.png)) and then
give links to the mind maps of both of these topics so user can learn them.
There should be no wandering around and wasting time finding resources and
being lost.

~~~
garysieling
Have you explored taking links from Wikipedia and adding them into your
visualization? It might be interesting considering most articles have
resources at the bottom.

~~~
neurocroc
I do link to wikipedia articles on nearly all nodes. I just expand it with
more learning resources after. I think wikipedia is always a great starting
point for learning about any subject. Or you meant something else?

~~~
garysieling
I meant crawling wikipedia to add nodes automatically

~~~
neurocroc
Oh I see. I think something like this has been done before and the results are
usually messy. Although I do want to use algorithms and curate things in a
more 'smart' way that I do now. A bonus point of doing it by hand is that I
take in the time to understand the topic for myself and actually understand
why that node goes there and not in some other place.

------
_6cj7
This looks similar to [https://metacademy.org](https://metacademy.org). I am
curious how these maps are built and how resources are being selected
(methodology-wise)?

~~~
neurocroc
Author here. I was greatly inspired by this website. It was my goal to
actually combine metacademy's idea of solving the dependency problems of
knowledge and do it in a similar way but visually.

~~~
jmstfv
But how do you choose which resources (books, articles, courses..) to include?
Is it performed algorithmically or by hand? I was working on the similar
project (dependency trees for concepts) and the biggest roadblock I faced was
the addition of new resources, since it is laborious, doesn't scale well and
is pretty subjective.

~~~
neurocroc
Currently the entirety of the mind map was hand picked and curated by me. I
did use the internet a lot though as there are quite many threads online that
have recommendations on what the 'best ways of learning X' is.

I also try to ask help from other people, ideally experts in their fields on
how to best structure the content. Mathematics one is quite challenging just
because everything is really so connected as far as ideas go.

I hope as this projects gets popular, more people will be willing to help and
improve it. It is a collaborative process after all.

~~~
garysieling
I've had pretty good success crowdsourcing recommendations for
[https://www.findlectures.com](https://www.findlectures.com) by asking
offering a weekly email of talks, and prompting people for recommended
speakers / conferences on sign-up.

I have a separate form on the site to get suggestions, but the email signup
one has better quality because it weed out people who want to spam the site
with their own content.

~~~
neurocroc
Hey Gary, I love what you have done with find lectures. I use it quite often
actually to find material. I am thinking of perhaps making a newsletter for
this project saying 'what is new' in the mind map. What do you think?

~~~
garysieling
Yeah, I think that would be interesting. Let me know if you make one!

~~~
neurocroc
I did. :)

Here it is (bit.ly/learn-anything-letter).

~~~
garysieling
Signed up! I'll be interested to see how the Patreon thing goes as well.

------
davymac
This is excellent but discovery has too much friction. I've been looking for
something like the google knowledge graph for personal or business use haven't
been able to find anything pre-made and I'm far too lazy to build it myself
with Cayley or Neo4j or _insert graph database here_. Has anyone heard of
anything similar? Just want an easy way to search, and add entries to a graph
database, hopefully with node-level permissions that can be applied. I feel
like it would help everyone, so I'd assume someone other than Google would
have made it already but I haven't found it... anyone up to the task so I can
be lazy?

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gyrgtyn
This is really cool and I hate to show up to complain, but the text is blurry
on my screen (mac, chrome) -like blurry enough that i get an uneasy feeling
that makes me want to close the window.

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drumttocs8
Can't wait to build off of this. Mind maps are good for many, but others would
prefer structured lists. Either way, a crowdsourced/curated learning base is
something I've been itching to build.

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pugio
I have been working to do this with a high(er) degree of granularity for a
high school physics curriculum. The idea is to represent a student's unique
journey through a topic space, and break free of the enforced and artificial
linearity that a textbook's sequential chapters impose.

Don't we all learn naturally by following our needs, or curiosity, through
webs of knowledge, forging our own path to understanding?

EDIT: Found one of my favorite quotes on this: "The student feels that, on his
own, he wouldn't have followed the route he has just been led down; and he
forgets that there a thousand paths in intellectual space open to his will." –
The Ignorant Schoolmaster (Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation), Jaqcues
Rancière

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
Kudos! Great job! One bit of advice: this would work better as a single page
app that magnifies/animates as you zoom in on topics, letting you keep the big
picture in sites.

~~~
ooqr
Agreed. Zoom in on subgraphs for nodes which represent complex topics in their
own right.

------
lcall
I need to read the rest of this discussion a bit later, but a quick comment in
case anyone is still here:

I see mind maps and tables of contents as different UI views of the same data.
Years ago I used a product on Windows called Inspiration which let you flip
between the two views: a hierarchical/collapsible outline, and a graphical map
showing boxes and lines (or such).

Since I found myself using the collapsible outline feature much more than the
pictures, but wanted many more features and support for a theory of knowledge,
I wrote and am working on adding features to:

[http://www.onemodel.org](http://www.onemodel.org)

It makes an internal knowledge graph as one uses the product (stored in
postgres, runs fast). It builds an object model on the fly as a side-effect of
using the product, using relationships, numbers, etc as knowledge at an atomic
level where words are secondary. The best info organizer (for my style at
least) that I know of, though (so far) less feature-rich than many products. I
hope the About page at that link explains the present and future well.

------
gr__or
I worked on something similar a while ago. First I also looked into building
something more visual/map like but after many iterations I got frustrated by
the lack of overview one had for more complex maps. So I pivoted to a more
TOC/text based version. It was supposed to be community driven but when I
finished my studies, the app lost the utility it once had to me. But it's
still up & running:

[https://owleo.herokuapp.com/concepts](https://owleo.herokuapp.com/concepts)
Source: [https://github.com/Gregoor/owleo](https://github.com/Gregoor/owleo)

A startup that also takes the visual learning map route is Expii:
[https://www.expii.com/](https://www.expii.com/)

------
itissid
One suggestion on helping people remember better. The emojis are ambiguous.
Like I cannot remember the difference between the 2 book icons. I suggest make
them the same with a $ sign on the paid one, Or better $ flying out of a book
for a paid ebook.

IMHO people learn better with pictures that are vivid, would you remember
something better if I attached it to the word "elephant" vs "an elephant with
a pink underwear"?

------
toisanji
Love this idea. I hope it can grow.

Just played around with the demo, one think I would change is to make it work
as a single page to make it instant, it feels kind of slow.

------
pwm
Interesting but not really surprising that mathematics is the big sink in the
graph. Although I'd put philosophy there too.

------
faraggi
Cool idea, but not _really_ interactive.

Being an etherum fan, it was amusing to see only ethereum listed in the
decentralized computing category
([https://my.mindnode.com/mxFpyqEV2YXLGBoLgUBydSWkB1qdXqzvbqzQ...](https://my.mindnode.com/mxFpyqEV2YXLGBoLgUBydSWkB1qdXqzvbqzQpZZv#-146.1,-63.6,2))

------
openfuture
This has been on my mind for a really long time and I'm trying to make
basically the same thing except the focus would be on interactively building
your own map rather than exploring others but now I got to see if I can add
that to this rather than build my own.

~~~
neurocroc
If you do consider adding and improving this mind map, it would be amazing.
Thank you for that. I want it to be a collaborative process where anyone can
come in and propose a change.

------
bane
Mind maps are interesting tools, and even overlapping mind maps can be useful
ways of showing where multiple sources of understanding can work
together...but I feel like this is just arriving at semantic graphs again. And
those graphs are already very well trod.

~~~
noobiemcfoob
You're not wrong by virtue of mind maps being an applied graph, but the
motivations for the edges and clustering is meant to mimic the architecture of
human memory as we understand it. A proper mind map can represent abstract and
disjoint relationships between concepts using these tools. We can organize
data into lists and tables of content, but that's not actually how humans
process it.

------
bermanoid
Am I the only one that when I click on anything, the image just zooms and
there's no link?

~~~
neurocroc
You have to click on the link with the mind map ([http://bit.ly/learning-
mind](http://bit.ly/learning-mind)).

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mikelyons
Seems like a case for making mindmaps like this out of wikipedia

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executesorder66
I find it interesting that most things lead to either Computer science,
Mathematics, or psychology.

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JakiesKonto
Finally! :)

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colinmegill
Great work

~~~
colinmegill
Former teacher, have been thinking about knowledge graphs / dependencies for
years related to project based learning. Reach out if you ever want to talk.
My Twitter is the same as my handle.

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macey
This is so cool! What a great project. Awesome resources linked up too.

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CodeSheikh
Nice graph-based menu.

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MaggieL
AAPL only?

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accountyaccount
"anything" as long as it's within a narrow range of worthy® pursuits

