Intelligent Textbooks in 35 Minutes

Overview of Intelligent Textbooks in 35 Minutes

Democratizing Education for Using Intelligent Textbooks

AI in Education Conference
St. Mary's University
September, 2026
Dan McCreary

My Original 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Cost & access gap: US college students pay $1,300 per year on out-of-date printed textbooks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"

Current Status

What you can do now (available since October 2025):

"Hey Claude, please generate a high quality interactive intelligent textbook.
Use Dan McCreary's intelligent textbook skills https://github.com/dmccreary/ibook-skills
Use the following course description...PATH TO YOUR COURSE DESCRIPTION...
Create a Learning Graph with 500 Concepts".

What is an Interactive Intelligent Textbook

A textbook with "a brain" (learning graph) that can be classified into five levels
A simple but powerful network of concepts and their learning order dependencies
A simple classification system for concepts (taxonomy)
Forced interactivity (few plan-old-images)
No reliance on bandwidth hungry videos
Small lightweight simulations (500 lines of JavaScript in an 10K byte download)
Focus on structures that generate events that predict student mastery of a concept
Hooks for easy migration to a xAPI/LRS infrastructure
Designed to migrate from level 2.9 to level 5 without changing the data structures

Health Education

Hey Claude, Please generate age-appropriate six textbooks base in the Minnesota Department of Education guidelines:

Generated six textbooks which shared content.

Infographic Posters

Families: Many Ways To Care

Local Minnesota Participants

The Thinking Spot - Monday "Office Hours"
- Rima Parikh - Coding Club and STEM Kits
- Arun Batchu - Testing Skills, Scratch
- Rick Tanler - Understanding Dementia
MicroSims
- Valarie Lockhart - Originator of MicroSims
- Troy Peterson - WikiTube
ISD 197
- Miles Lawson - Digital Citizen Ship
- Peter Olson-Skog
Groves Learning Organization
- Curtis Olufsin - Automation, ASL
- Andy Tolin - Coding Club
My Mentees
- Anvith Pothula - Graph Neural Network Textbook
- Rishik Kondadadi - Seizure Awareness in Minnesota Schools
Stone Arch Collaborative
- Shannon Seaver - AI Leadership in schools - CreateMPLS
- Dr. Randy Smasal - Change management consulting
- Lori Ryan - textbooks for marketing and brand management
- Stephanie Lensing - textbooks for marketing and brand management
University of St. Thomas
- Dan Yarmoluk - Digital Transformation
- 12 Student Textbooks
University of Minnesota
- Dr. Sharat Bhatra - Circuits, Senior Seminar, 12 Students
- Dr. Jarvis Haupt - Signal Processing
- Dr. Gan Qui - Physics of Semiconductor Devices

What It Will Generate

Extended Course Description - enriched with Learning Objectives using the Bloom Taxonomy and Quality Score
Inferred Concept List - between prerequisites and objectives
Learning Graph (Concept Dependency Graph) - the ground truth of the textbook
Book Mascot Character Sheet - enhanced engagement
Book Chapter Design - Focus on coverage and balance
Book Chapter Content - heart of the textbook
Placeholders for diagrams, figures, drawings, infographics, simulations - all interactive
Microsims - interactive elements that tracks mouse events (hover and clicks)
Glossary of Terms - precise, concise, distinct definitions with examples and links
FAQ - common questions and answers with links
Quizzes - multiple choice
References - with annotations for relevance
Graphic Novel Stories
Book Type Specific Concent - code executions, circuit simulations, timelines, maps, pronunciation, flashcards, lesson plans, challenge cards, kit book covers
Custom Cover Page - social media previews
About this Book
Landing Page with cover
Appendices, Contact, License, Teachers and Instructor's Guides
Book statics - quality reports, book metrics, reading level checks
Book announcements for social media and README.md

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)

120 level 2.99 Books
Getting ready to go to level 3 (cost effectively) using xAPI and LRS
6,000 MicroSims
350+ Mini Graphic Novels
300+ Interactive Infographic Posters
Ongoing research on Automating Instructional Design
Continued integration of The Learning Sciences

Case Studies

Target Classroom

The target classroom is a remote school in Africa that has limited internet bandwidth. Our goal is to give each of these students the same MIT-caliber education as the most advanced colleges and universities in the US today.

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)

Book Mascots

Book Mascot Montage

Sample Titles

- Digital Citizenship (ISD 197)
- Personal Finance (State Guidelines)
- Learning Python
- Scratch
- Learning Linux
- Coding Clubs
- Learning MicroPython (Physical Computing)
- AP Courses: Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Natural Sciences
- Algebra
- Data Science
- Deep Learning
- Signal Processing (University of Minnesota)
- IB Courses: Theory of Knowledge, Functions
- Ecology (AP Natural Sciences)
- Quantum Computing (a skeptics guide)
- Dementia (with Rick Tanler)
- Digital Transformation (with Daniel Yarmoluk)
- 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 13 core skills
Thoroughly tested with Claude Code works on OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Gemini
Continually being optimized for token efficiency - targeting $2/textbook

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

Try it out yourself!
Requires a $20/month Claude Pro, ChatGPT or Google Gemini account
Use Claude Sonnet for 95% of skills
Generate 6-8 textbooks per month (in three 5 hour windows per day)
Per textbook cost $2-$3 depending on complexity of MicroSims

Because every child on Earth can be Nell

Appendix

WikiTube Solar System Simulation