Adding a Review or Notes section to modules

Hi, thanks for all your hard work with this invaluable resource!
I have a feature suggestion that would be really helpful. Hopefully I’m not repeating something already suggested.

It would be really useful if there was a way to review all of the steps for each module in one spot or just have a general review sheet for each module (perhaps an ‘R’ box after the last numbered box in each section). I have found myself frequently going back to old modules and just clicking the last step to try and look back at all the previous code and hopefully figure out the piece of info I’m forgetting, since the bits of information taught are all scattered into many different steps. Seeing all the steps in one spot would be much easier, but a general review page for the concepts taught might be better since often times a lot of the steps in a module are just repeating steps or making edits, not just a new concept every time.

One counterpoint to this suggestion is that users might end up skipping ahead to the review pages and miss doing the actual work which helps reinforce the concepts. There are a few alternate suggestions that could work around this. The first would be to have the review section be gated off until the user has finished all the other steps, or better yet to have concepts within the R section be individually unlocked as steps are completed, so users can still review as they go. Another idea would be to have a notes tab that is built into the modules, kind of like Udemy has, so users can add notes within the browser as they go and then refer to all of their notes in one spot. I have always been terrible about remembering to take notes or forgetting to bring a physical notebook etc. when I’m going somewhere to work, but the built in note taking system that Udemy has makes it really easy to encourage note taking behavior since it’s built in.

Any other suggestions for the best way to help users review info also encouraged in the comments. I know some people may be like “you should just take notes in Word” or something like that, but if the goal of the site is to help users learn in the best and most efficient way possible, adding such features would only help achieve that. At the very least, providing tips for note taking and reminders to do so within lessons would help encourage good learning skills as users go through the material.

Edit: adding a Notes tab within the workflow may not be best because since the workspace can already get overcrowded with the instructions, HTML, CSS, and preview tabs open all at once. However, if you keep data on what step in a module the notes are placed, it could provide very useful insight on which steps users find most important or helpful, which can be used to help cut some fat and streamline the lessons if needed.

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Adding an index has been on the To-Do list for a while and I think it would fit this role.

Its hard to provide a general persistent note taking functionality without having to store insane amounts of data, I’d guess.

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i like the idea of having a single point of ‘review’ where the main ideas are presented in one shot. I don’t think it is a problem if people skip (some of us actually start with some prior html/css knowledge and would probably just need to review to remember it)

An example that this suggestion reminds me of is the “Notes” that CS50X provides after each lecture. They list out in succinct points and code samples the main ideas presented. (which allows me to quickly revise when its been a few weeks and I’ve forgotten some detail that was mentioned)

Good to know, thanks!
Your point about data storage for notes is a really good point. I just added an edit to the post with some more pros and cons of a notes feature from the developer’s side of things, but none of that matters if the actual logistics of being able to store all that info on the server side isn’t even feasible.

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