100 Intelligent Textbooks

My Journey to Democratize Education for All.

Dan McCreary
Applied AI Event
June 4th, 2026

The Inspiration

Diamond Age: Neal Stephenson's 1995 Cyberpunk Novel

A young girl is given an AI-powered tablet that imprints on the girl
Every lesson the girl needs is customized to her context

Dan's Quest

How would I build such a device?

The Problem With Paper Textbooks

The static textbook problem (printed in 2019, used in 2026)
One-size-fits-all "Direct Instruction" model fails the 80% - the advanced bored, the struggling get lost
Cost & access gap: US college students pay $1,300 per year on out-of-date printed textbooks
The engagement crisis (passive reading vs. active learning)
Teachers are drowning (no time to personalize)

Prompt Goal: "Generate a 1,000 page textbook on information systems with 100 MicroSims"

Dan's Journey - Bullet List Version

Studied AI since graduate school
Worked on DSP hardware at Bell Labs
Worked for Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer
Focused on knowledge representation of adaptive textbooks
Realized that RDBMS were not suited for the task
Started the NoSQL Now! conferences in 2011
Focused on graph databases
Helped build the world's largest healthcare graph at UHG/Optum
Designed "learning graphs" for generating intelligent textbooks
Used Claude Code Skills to intelligent textbooks

My Journey Infographic Version

MicroSims

- Worked as a volunteer with a local coding club starting in 2014 - Worked with Valarie Lockhart on teaching prompt engineering to teachers - Valarie Lockhart coined the term "MicroSim" after using ChatGPT to generate p5.js - I generalized the process and used iframes to make MicroSims easy to embed - Published a paper formalizing the MicroSim standards with Valarie and Troy Peterson

MicroSim Uniqueness

The Five Levels of Intelligent Textbooks

Book Levels Fullscreen

Timeline of Intelligent Textbooks

Timelines Fullscreen

Productivity Jumps

Productivity Jumps Fullscreen

Final 10 Hours

Most time-consuming tasks was user interface layout cleanup of the MicroSims (placement)
New Claude Vision tool now "sees" UI and will apply layout fixes
Saves and additional 3-4 hours per book
Automation of mascot design and cover design also saves 1 hour

Current Status (this is real now)

100 level 2.99 Books
Getting ready to go to level 3 (cost effectively) using xAPI and LRS
3,300 MicroSims
308 of Mini Graphic Novels
Ongoing research on Automating Instructional Design
Continued integration of The Learning Sciences

Case Studies

The Bouncing Ball MicroSim Example

Animal Cell (Interactive Infographic Overlay)

Biogeochemical Cycles (Water, Nitrogen, Carbon, Phosphorus)

Challenges Getting LLMs to Generate Consistent Content

Getting LLMs to generate consistent simulation interfaces
Every diagram MUST be interactive (for level 3 xAPI enabled)
No static images or drawing
Complex infographics are great, but overlay interactive region hovers

How I Generate Intelligent Textbooks

Course description (100 point scale)
=> Learning graph
=> Chapter design
=> Chapter content generation (with mascot and microsim specifications)
=> MicroSim generation
=> Supplementary content generations (glossary, faq, quizzes, lesson plans, references)
=> Automated quality assessment (coverage, metrics, scaffolding)

Learning Graph

Core data structure behind content generation and hyper-personalization.
Directed Acyclic Graph of concepts and their learning order

Computer Science (400) Information Systems (580)

Level 2 Intelligent Book Components

Search
Navigation
Chapters
Pedagogical Agents Book Mascots
Glossary of Terms
FAQs
Quizzes for each chapter (Multiple choice with high quality plausible distractors)
Annotated references (detailed analysis of each reference from students perspective)
MicroSims - physics, chemistry, biology, infographics, charts
Systems Thinking - Causal Loop Diagrams
Stories (mini-graphic novels)
Teacher Guides/Instructor Guides
Quality Reports (reading level etc.)

Book Mascots

Book Mascot Montage

Sample Titles

- Intro to Python
- Linux
- MicroPython
- Clocks and Watches
- Physics
- Algebra
- Data Science
- Deep Learning
- Signal Processing (University of Minnesota)
- Functions
- AP Calculus
- AP Chemistry
- AP Biology
- Ecology (AP Natural Sciences)
- Moss
- Quantum Computing (a skeptics guide)
- Dementia (with Rick Tanler)
- Investor Relations (with David Berglund)
- Digital Transformation (with Daniel Yarmoluk)
- Digital Citizenship (ISD 197)
- Personal Finance
- Cooking Science
- Public Health
- Forensic Science

Leveling Up Your Intelligent Textbooks

Leveling Up Your Intelligent Textbooks Text

Static walls of text
second level "Hand coded simulations"
GenAI generated simulations
Claude Code assembled textbooks in GitHub
Claude Code Skills to generate consistent content
Use the Claude Code Skill Generator to generate new skills
Use Claude Code to token optimize skills
Use Claude Code to do process mining to improve skills quality and value

Skills for Developing Intelligent Textbooks

Created with Claude Code starting around October 2025
Currently about 30 skills
Thoroughly tested with Claude Code
Continually being optimized for token efficiency
Some testing on OpenAI Codex and Google Gemini

The Democratization of Education

A Side Effect of Dan's Quest
How would the world change if a 12-year old girl from the remote regions of Africa has access to the same quality of hyper-personalized education as every student at MIT?
How could we use intelligent textbooks to democratize education for all children on Earth?
Should an ultra-high quality of hyper-personalized education be free for all children on earth?

The Democratization of Education

Making Teaching Fun

From "Sage on the Stage" to Guide on the Side

Making Chatbot 41x lower Cost

Call to Action

Ask ChatGPT|Claude|Gemini what MicroSims are?
Ask ChatGPT|Claude|Gemini what the five levels of intelligent textbooks are?
Review a sample intelligent textbook from the case studies
Download the intelligent textbook skills into Claude Code, OpenAI Codex or Google AntiGravity
Start with a course description and say "Please Use Dan McCreary's Claude Skills to Build me a textbook"

Because every child on Earth can be Nell