Day 1 - Introduction to "Little Data"
I'm so excited to have you along this journey with me.
I'm 100% committed to changing the future of education, and the one thing that I know for certain is that I can't do it alone.
Because this is the beta version, I'm going to try to release new emails daily. I don't expect you to keep up with everything. Because it's in beta, I'm going to toss a lot at you and see what feels interesting to you. The things you choose to do will help me make decisions about what seems more interesting to people.
This is the first lesson. You don't always need extremely specific data to gain important insights. Sometimes, just some data is enough, because it allows you to see changes over time.
With that said, there's some data I need to collect. These are the most important things for you to complete, because they'll help me make sure I can deliver something that is valuable to you.
You don't always need extremely specific data to gain important insights. Sometimes, just some data is enough, because it allows you to see changes over time.
That's the goal of this university: I want it to be, without a doubt in your mind, the most valuable experience you've ever had.
Until I get that, I'm at your service. (Calendar link available for students)
One of the ways that I'm going to try to prove that I understand your context is that I'm going to try to predict the questions you have and answer them before we meet. Over time, my goal will be to have no meetings because the predictive answers I provide ahead of time will be complete enough and actionable enough you won't actually need to talk to me.
And as I build that predictive model, it's yours to tweak and use as you see fit. That's a big part of the future that I believe we need to create. We need a world in which everyone has their own AI guardians to protect themselves against the AI usage of others.
But to start, I do need a couple of things. (For links to surveys, there is an "email" parameter you need to add to the url. If you want to submit the surveys to be included in any of the analysis and want to receive any insights related to the data, add ?email=<your email> to the url of the survey, and I'll make sure you get any reports that are generated from your information)
A Vibe Measurement - This is simple way for me to collect information about how students feel about their place in the world overall and how that dictates the future they see. Optimally, you'll eventually hit 10s across the board.
The Boring Stuff - I tried to think of a way to make this fun, but it's not really that fun yet. Eventually we'll get there. But this is just a way for me to get some demographic information and hints on what platforms will be most helpful to create things for.
Finally, here's the first community data project. The first thing I want to create is an interactive "Campus Map" of the university. I thought it could be a fun way to welcome lots of small donations by giving people a chance to name "buildings" on campus. The map is going to be used to teach things about embeddings and search.
I shared more on Twitter (and if you are on there, I'd appreciate a share. The algorithm isn't my friend so I'm focusing on the people)
That's it for day 1! Hope that's not too overwhelming. If it is, please let me know, or give me any other feedback. I'll see you tomorrow with something new.
~Leo