Notes that outlive the lecture

A live lecture is wonderful and gone. The energy in the room does not survive to next Tuesday, and neither does the explanation that finally made the idea click. So we built lecture notes: a single readable article a student can return to long after the room has emptied.

This blog you are reading is built on exactly that same format — which is the whole point of this post.

One document, self-assembling

A note is just Markdown. You write headings, paragraphs, and lists, and the article builds itself: every ## and ### becomes an entry in the contents sidebar on the left, and as you scroll it highlights the section you are reading. No layout tools, no dragging boxes around.

• Write the words.
• Let the structure fall out of the headings.
• Reuse it anywhere — a note, or a blog post like this one.

It carries the interactive parts too

The reason we did not just use a plain blog engine is that a note can hold the same interactive blocks the live slides use. A figure from class drops straight into the reading, and a quiz can sit in the margin for a reader to practise on for weeks. You have already seen both in the previous post.

The best note does not transcribe the lecture. It gives the ideas somewhere to live once the room has emptied.

Why the blog reuses it

When we sat down to write these posts, we realised we had already built the ideal authoring format for them. Recycling it meant the blog inherited the contents sidebar, the typography, and the interactive blocks for free — and it means anything we can say in a lecture note, we can say here.

That is the whole trick: build one good reading surface, then use it everywhere.