

Show HN: Madrassa – Code and Design Courses Reduced to 5sec GIFs - jibly
http://www.madrassa.co

======
jibly
Just launched www.madrassa.co Where I try to tackle the 90% dropout rate that
online courses experience, by reducing the 10,15,30+ hours of course material
to 1,2,3 minutes total. Using the native language of the web (GIF) to teach
Code & Design skills. What courses would you want to see on madrassa?

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dwild
Really good idea. I'm not too sure about GIF, why not use a proper video
format that will use less bandwidth. You could always use GIF as a failover.

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jibly
Tnx! The point of GIF is to not need plugins, or pause videos etc. GIF is not
super efficiently used in this beta version though. Need to improve that.

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anoncow
audioless mp4 or what imgur calls .gifv could also be an option.

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jibly
good call. checking that out

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ntietz
A few quick comments:

1\. It would be nice to be able to use arrow keys to move through the courses.
Even when I have my mouse, I prefer to use my keyboard for this.

2\. Related, it would be nice to have the browser's back/forward work as
expected.

3\. As another commenter noted, it's hard to see where in the gif loop it is,
some indicator (or ability to restart it) would be great.

It looks great and I'm looking forward to learning using it.

~~~
jibly
I love the keyboard next/prev idea, as well as your other points. Noted down
and it will be there in an update 100% sure. tnx a lot!

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jonifico
This is a truly interesting concept. By shortening the learning time like
this, things seem a lot more doable, particularly on the first levels. I think
one of the things that make it so hard for people not to drop out is the fact
that just starting seems like this insurmountable task. I wonder how this
would work on more complex levels, though. Great job, in any case!

I'd love to see a flappy bird-like game being developed.

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Jun8
Great idea. One small comment: Some of the text needs some work, e.g. for the
free lesson on prototype two of the required materials are listed as "A4
paper" (would a letter-sized paper not do, is the specific size important?
Better say "a sheet of paper that's larger than ...") and "some pencils" (
_some_ sounds strange here because _pencil_ is a count noun).

Other than those, when I clicked on the next arrow on the first screen I was
presented with a screen with problems (Chrome 38.0 on Mavericks): the text
"2/20" was sitting on top of the instruction text and the window displayed
nothing. Why not detect the user device and put a help message indicating that
the site has to be used on a mobile device? When you say "You'll only need an
iOS or Android device" in the course description I thought (mistakenly) that
these will be required _in addition to_ my laptop.

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ahstilde
Firefox on 8.1, I did not have the problem you experienced.

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pjc50
Interesting. I like the implication that content runtime is a _cost_ not a
benefit of courses. And the content is accessible as text and forward-
skippable nicely. As someone who avoids youtube unless it's the only source of
information on a subject, this is great.

Not entirely sure about calling it "madrassa", though.

~~~
zem
"madrassa" is simply arabic for "school"; i really like the name because for
me the word brings the ancient arab scholarly traditions to mind. also it is a
nicely inclusive touch to use the word despite the somewhat unfortunate
connotations it has taken on in the west.

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hugopeixoto
Looks like a nice idea. Here's my two cents:

1\. It's a bit hard for me to tell when the GIF starts or loops, specially
when I try to read the text below it. Perhaps there could be some small delay
at the end, or a progress indicator?

2\. Could you possibly make the next/previous arrows regular links (with
return false or whatever is used to prevent it from reloading the page)? I'm
in a setup where using the mouse is awkward, and I can't reach that arrow
using only the keyboard.

~~~
jibly
Both very good points indeed. Thank you.

1\. Didn't think of that before. Makes sense 2\. Agreed. Also will probably
help with spreading the loading times etc. Need to work on the UI of the
courses a bit

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jibly
Absolutely. Some of the sites brag about having 30+hour of content, not
knowing that for many that's scaring them away.

Tnx! noting down the flappy bird-like-game course.

~~~
jonifico
Exactly. Sometimes less is more.

Hit me up if you ever need anything with the project. :D

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jibly
awesome tnx! will definitely do

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jayp
Doesn't the name have seriously negative connotations... at least in English-
language media. Until I looked it up right now, I didn't know that is a
positive word in Arabic. I have always seen in portrayed negatively and
associated with Islamic fundamentalism.

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jibly
yeah it simply means 'School'. But tnx to mainstream media, it might have some
negative taste to it unfortunately. Will have to see if I keep the name or
change it.

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asabil
I think it's a pretty cool name

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WildUtah
Could not access the site in Chrome. Just got the message "Tnx, we will notify
you when new courses become available."

No content available. Seems like it's premature to launch an announcement on
HN when you're still invitation-only.

~~~
jibly
It's not invitation only, can you try a different browser? You should be able
to play around with it and access the course.

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steedsofwar
I can click on 'Get Early Access', without entering an email address.

I like it! Not so hot on the gifs, but it's short and sweet.

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sp332
Not sure how common this is, but isn't your logo really similar to
[http://mymixify.com](http://mymixify.com)?

~~~
jibly
The logo for madrassa is simply a glasses with a (commonly used) loop icon.

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jaoued
Very innovative and fun at the same time. You should showcase this to schools,
as kids would definitely love it.

~~~
jibly
tnx! will absolutely do. Trying to get the concept right before really pushing
it hard. I wish I had something like this for myself back in school. I might
have not gotten kicked out after they bored me to death.

