Email me for an beta invite at ken@understudyapp.com. This is exactly the problem we're trying to solve!
With our iPad app, you pick a material (e.g. http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/) and work through it, talking once a week to someone who has already been through it. As you progress, you begin to mentor someone else who is less far along in the same way that you were helped. The collaboration environment in the app is live video (ala Skype) plus a whiteboard - the main surface of the iPad.
The problem in learning isn’t information access: it’s determination. It’s dead easy to put down a book or stop watching a lecture. If you’re talking to someone, you cannot just stop, and when a human asks "what have you done since last time?" you don’t want to have to say "nothing". Think of single founder vs two founder startups - someone else who cares is huge.
On the mentoring side, explaining a concept to someone else is a forcing function for getting things clear and organized for yourself. Also, it's fun to talk about stuff you chose to spend time working on and understanding, and it's fun to help someone else follow in your footsteps.
One of the reasons that autodidacts are autodidacts is because many are working $10/hr jobs and we didn't have an honest or fair shake at getting into college.
Given that, why would someone want to spend three week's salary just to download your app?
I also disagree that determination is the the problem for many autodidacts. Many of us really do enjoy the experience of learning and there is a mile of difference between slacking off and quitting. Personally, I would never pressure someone into learning that isn't into it. The Autodidact brain is not built like this.
With the iPad requirement (too poor for that + refusal to buy Apple anything and no I won't change my mind when I have enough money) and an apparent misunderstanding of who I am, I'm probably not in your target audience.
This really should be a web-based business. What is the obsession with making everything apps these days?
With that in mind, if you would like to talk to me my email is included in the public key on my profile. (You don't have to use the key if you don't want to. You can just import it and read the email address. I do that to stop spammers from finding it.)
This is solving the wrong problem (for Autodidacts, at least). Kind of no different than Khan's discussion boards, coursera's forums, and what have you.
You must realize, for a very human experience (learning and social/peer bonding around the topics) - technology is only an enabler and not whole pony show.
What's lacking is a platform for genuine collaboration and discussion on the topic of learning qua learning for people that are creating their own formal process of learning.
I have a feeling that this will manifest as a conference or weeklong retreat - rather than an app or discussion forums.
Is there some sort of network for people on the outside of the university system? A mailing list or something?