Just as it became important to author textbooks near the end of the $19^{th}$ century, in the $21^{st}$ century we've seen it's become important to program. More and more students are learning to program, but not everyone is a programmer, just like everyone wasn't an author in the $19^{th}$ century. Programmers are like the modern authors during an era when computer literacy is increasing. However, if we can use programming to enable some non-programmers to communicate technical ideas, then we can enable a larger population of ``modern'' authors.


What about \emph{interactive} authorship? 


History has told us about how the democratization of knowledge has been inhibited by literacy, and that it's been used over societies to exercise power and dominance over subpopulations \cite[8]{power}. How can educators make students literate if the ability to control machines is indeed the key to a new era of literacy of this century? 


As society progresses today, the amount of people who work in front of computer are increasing \cite[1]{power}. It's becoming more important in the modern world to be computer literate in general. Programming languages are built on top of languages like English, and can be used to express extremely complex ideas. If a person learns to code, perhaps the ability to express their ideas more closely to the actual concept of it in their mind can increase, or at least the number of ways they can store an idea in their mind. The analogy for the current use of the alphabet becomes like an ideogram, and programming will emulate the combination of ideograms to represent more complexity.


We speak more than words these days through technology---it's Time that software is accessible to everyone through Language, and the Web is the next big step towards this movement. But we also have to understand that it takes time, and not everyone is an ``author''. But for those who are interested, how can we bridge the gap?



\TeX\ is and has been the academic publishing standard, and HTML5 is the {\it lingua franca} of the Web. Within the unification of these two languages we can find a simple prescription---using \TeX\ for how things should ``look'' and HTML5 for how things should ``function''. \TeX\ is also closer to what most people understand as language, since it primarily uses text to write papers and books as opposed to programs---it is less abstact. Mapping a typesetting language to programming can help us build a robust online platform for documenting math and science, and one that is built to last.



Interactive experiences provide deeper learning because we use more parts of our brain, so authorship of these types of systems can catalyze the learning process. Students can learn concepts more effectively when presented with a digital textbook that provides interactive, mathematical diagrams, than compared to their dusty, scholastic counterparts.


When questioning whether or not computers are providing something positive in our lives---the computer is good. It {\it is} the future of the textbook. We {\it learn} from computers.

\begin{quotation}

Most of the time, a person sits down at her personal computer not to create, but to read, observe, study, explore, make cognitive connections, and ultimately come to an understanding. This person is not seeking to make her mark upon the world, but to rearrange her own neurons. The computer becomes a medium for asking questions, making comparisons, and drawing conclusions---that is, for learning \cite[7]{victor}.
\end{quotation}
To accelerate education, we need to first provide immersive learning experiences, and also accelerate the authorship of such interactive material. We can do the later by providing a language that expresses interactivity in a syntax that is as close to resembling mathematics as possible, to enable the common math professor to express their ideas through digital medium that their students can engage with. 


Interactive Text and Learning