A friend and I decided to build an Anki replacement a few years ago, it's now located at https://www.memorangapp.com and has a loyal following of 10s of thousands of users. Anki is a great tool and has a wide variety of content on Ankiweb, however the ecosystem doesn't allow for any collaboration or the ability to keep content up to date (aside from manually editing decks, but where for example can you suggest a correction?).
Memorang was designed from the ground up to be the next generation adaptive learning platform. In fact many hard-core Anki users have switched over to our platform and love it! The main difference is in the ease of use of both creating and consuming content. Anki has the underpinnings of supermemo, which is designed for the ideal learner. In a couple of experiments that we've done partnered with large institutions, one still underway, we have shown that most students are not "ideal learners" in that most still cram right before big exams or deadlines. The original study focused on efficacy, you can find the slides we did for an NSF sponsored presentation here http://www.slideshare.net/gjcourt/memorang-nsf-mooc-2014. The latest study is still in the works, but will involve significantly more data.
Anki is a fantastic program and many people love and use it everyday. If you have loved and used Anki as much as we have, then give Memorang a try and see what you think! (or come help us improve the future of learning https://www.memorangapp.com/jobs)
While many people may love Anki, you can count me out. I used it extensively during my first 2 years of medical school along with trying physical cards, Quizlet, and even my own custom batch files and macros. I think that it works for a very particular use case, and you need to fully commit to it to get the intended benefits.
My personal belief is that an "adaptive" learning system doesn't just adapt to the spacing effect, but to your study habits, emotional state, learning style, and even the global activity linked to certain concepts. (e.g. If you have a centralized API, you can track which facts learners struggle with and use the algorithms weight those facts for first-time learners). Learning isn't just meant to be something you do in isolation - there is a community aspect and there are endless things you can with a big data approach.
Our goal is to take spaced repetition and this new concept of meta-adaptivity and apply it to the masses, not just the hardcore users. Yeah, it sounds like a fancy vision but we're further along than you'd think. Would love to start a discussion on this and possibly get more manpower on making this a reality. (I dropped my career as a surgeon to make this happen, so we're all-in at this point).
A few references:
1. Dyrbye LN, Thomas MR, Shanafelt TD. Systematic review of depression, anxiety,
and other indicators of psychological distress among U.S. and Canadian medical
students. Acad Med. 2006 Apr;81(4):354-73. Review. PubMed PMID: 16565188.
2. Beard C, Clegg S, Smith K. Acknowledging the affective in higher education. BRIT EDUC RES J. 2007; 33(2): 235–252
3. Burleson W, Picard R. Affective Agents: Sustaining Motivation to Learn Through Failure and a State of “Stuck”. Social and Emotional Intelligence in Learning Environments Workshop in conjunction with the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Maceio-Alagoas, Brasil. August 31, 2004. http://affect.media.mit.edu/pdfs/04.burleson-picard.pdf
4. Durlak JA, Weissberg RP, Dymnicki AB, Taylor RD, Schellinger KB. The impact of
enhancing students' social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of
school-based universal interventions. Child Dev. 2011 Jan-Feb;82(1):405-32. doi:
10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x. PubMed PMID: 21291449.
Is it open source? Can I store and access the data locally?
I have a very large Anki deck that I've spent years building and curating, I'm not interested in surrendering all that labor to a closed ecosystem that may or may not be around in the future....
One of the things I realized after using Anki for a while is that school education isn't really even designed for retention - it seems built for cramming and forgetting.
I'm just concluding that off of basic scale. After using Anki for a couple of coursera courses and being overwhelmed with cards for months until it calmed down, I realized there was no way I would have been able to keep up with retaining all learned knowledge in college, several classes per semester. The Anki review burden just would have been too great.
When you guys have some api documentation I'd love to hear about it. I find myself relying more and more on 'life automation', dashboards and reminders that help to measure, as well as encourage productivity from work, to exercise, to independent study. The ability to tie in personal metrics as well as random samples of card sets would make the difference between binge using an app like memorang or light continuous use; integrated in day to day life.
What do you guys think of Knewton (The gorilla in adaptive learning)? They claim to be super adaptive but it is hard to tell. I used their product and was not super impressed with the adaptivity.
Totally agree, spaced repetion has its role but has huge limitations. The limit of most programs is that it has you learn in a unidirectional manner, so very few memory pathways are formed and they are easily lost/degraded with time. As an post states, the flashcards didn't stay, but the characters you learned while in Japan stuck. I submit that part of that is that this material was presented to you in several ways (signs, books, TV, etc), rather than just flipping a card over and over. I've started using Memorang instead of anki, as it allows me to retain information in the long term, as it has multiple ways to approach/learn the same info.
Add the fact that it's free to generate your own content which is perfect for me (speaking as a medical stuff with thousands of facts to not only memorize but apply)
I used Anki for 30 minutes to an hour each day for about a year to memorise around 1500 Japanese characters and their readings, with the aid of a mnemonic technique. So long as you have an hour a day to dedicate to the flashcards without fail, you will retain the memorised information.
My problem was that a job and location change altered my daily routine entirely, so I stopped reviewing the cards. One year later, I have forgotten most of the characters I knew. However, the characters I learned while living in Japan, in context, are still fresh in my mind.
I think that spaced repetition isn't the memory panacea it's always touted to be. It's a great tool for cramming, but soon becomes a pain when you have hundreds of cards to review every day. I've heard good things about the goldlist method, a much more low-tech pen and paper approach. Does anyone have any experience with this technique? It claims to be better for long-term memory: http://huliganov.tv/goldlist-eu/
SRS is best used to reinforce things you learned outside the flashcard environment. So put things into Anki that you have some real-world context to anchor that memory to, and use Anki to reinforce that memory, not to create new memories that lack any vivid context in your mind outside of the drab flashcard app window where you first discovered the term in isolation. Ideally you're consuming native media, talking with natives, etc. and drawing from that to create your flashcards, since you'll come across a lot of terms that you learn once and then have otherwise forgotten by the time you see them again in the wild; this is where SRS helps.
> soon becomes a pain when you have hundreds of cards to review every day
If you have hundreds to review each day then you've gone nuts adding new items too fast. I know, because I've done exactly that and have seen tons of other people make the same mistake. Adding something like 5-10 new items per day (max) keeps things manageable in the long run. I would suggest that if you're spending more than 10-15 minutes in review that you stop adding new items until your review is under control.
Another problem I've had that seems in common with others is that using SRS is somewhat addictive, feels productive, and gives you nice concrete numbers to gauge your "progress". Many people, like me, fall into the trap of spending more and more time doing SRS, displacing other parts of the curriculum.
> However, the characters I learned while living in Japan, in context, are still fresh in my mind.
So much this. I haven't lived abroad, but I listen to podcasts and other media in my target languages. Things that I've heard and looked up and then heard again multiple times are pretty much permanent now. However memory works, this seems to trigger "this is important and useful, don't lose it!"
I'm learning Russian in my spare time, and have used the goldlist method to build vocabulary. The goldlist method is great, because
1) There's no cramming. Nothing is worse than cramming, and
2) you can have breaks as long as you want.
I reached 2200 words the first year, while having many week long breaks. I kinda stopped the regular vocabulary building around 2014, but even after months of inactivity, I can easily pick up the goldlist and continue where I stopped.
If you're trying to figure out Goldlist and having a hard time, this video helped me understand the actual method much faster than reading the 22 step list.
I think you aren't supposed to start with hundreds of cards. Start with 10, once their frequency drops to once/week or less, add 10 more, repeat ad nauseum. Since the frequency of cards drops integrably, you'll always have a constant and manageable number of cards to review.
>It's highly recommended that you install Anki from this package instead of relying on the version distributed with your OS, as the packages in the official repo are often very out of date.
Why is this still a problem in Linux-land? Why can't we just make some but not all packages rolling-release? Making Anki rolling-release won't make the distro unstable by any sensible meaning of the word.
>Why can't we just make some but not all packages rolling-release?
Does that include Anki's dependencies? And if it does, does it include all other packages that depend upon Anki's dependencies?
Also, does it include thousands of other packages similar to Anki that also "won't make the distro unstable by any sensible meaning of the word"?
Don't think you'll have a "just some rolling-release packages" distro by the end of that. Unless you think this specific package is somehow deserving of special treatment by Linux distributions (why?).
Frankly, "very out of date" when it is version 2.0.32 in debian testing and ubuntu current while the new, one month old version is 2.0.33 is overstated.
What are the features that are not in the debian stable package (2.0.31) or in 2.0.32 but are in the cutting edge 2.0.33 version? None of the bugs reported in the debian bug tracker seem to have been fixed by later versions!
With that said, you can make some but not all packages rolling-release with apt-pinning and using stable and sid or testing which are rolling.
It is much easier to create large numbers of cards on desktop than mobile. There are also a large number of third party add-ons available for desktop https://ankiweb.net/shared/addons/
Memrise is fun, and certainly much better designed than Anki, but at the end of the day it's just another startup that will either fail or get acquired and shut down. All your content will be destroyed, or maybe, if they're generous, given to you in some crappy export format that won't be interoperable with anything else.
I use Memrise, but Anki is my extended memory. Anything I want to actually remember is there.
Anki is great. I have been using it to prepare for my exams. Creating flashcards on my laptop and learning with them on my Android phone / tablet works like a charm. Also, the Android app just got updated. The only limitation I've found is that there is currently no way to self-host flashcards which can be accessed by the mobile app. If you're only using the desktop version you might want to look at https://github.com/dsnopek/anki-sync-server in order to self-host your flashcards.
I use Anki as a part of my college strategy (http://markbao.com/notes/college-strategies) by using the Cornell notetaking method to write up questions and answers for my notes and piping those 'cues' into Anki. Turns out self-testing is one of the best ways to learn, so this combination is surprisingly effective.
It's no replacement for actually learning the concepts, but they help in drilling down the foundational knowledge that helps me understand the bigger-picture concepts better.
I've been using Anki on my iPhone for the past 3 years and it's been quite effective. Highly recommend it for anybody who has a lot of content to learn. It's really useful if you can make time for it on a daily basis.
Remember that you read it here first, there will be a unicorn built on the concept of SRS. I use Anki daily and love the application but there's a learning curve and you have to build your own workflow to make it work. Someone is going to take the concept and make it accessible to the masses.
I've used AnkiSRS and recommended them, but I still don't have a good solution to catch up on decks that you're behind on. It's very good for keeping memory in tact with lots of info.
Someone please create a browser extension that automatically adds every word you "Look Up" to an Anki stack. My vocabulary would be vastly improved if I had this, I always find myself looking up the definition of the same complex words over and over again that are for whatever reason slippery for me to remember.
I love Anki, been using it for the last year.
What has been most powerful for me, is that I no longer take standard notes when trying to learn a new topic. Instead, all of my notes are in "question" form, so that I can keep on top of it over time. The spaced repetition keeps my learning efforts efficient and keeps things from leaking out of my wetware memory.
The synchronization feature between devices has also proven to be very useful, as I use my laptop usually to put in new questions, but use the iPhone app to quiz myself whenever I have a few spare minutes during the day (waiting in line, walking to work, etc).
UI is a little wonky at times, but its features and flexibility more than makes up for it for a dedicated student.
We've been working on a product more oriented towards "everyday" remembering instead of hardcore educational learning called Remembered.io (https://remembered.io)
It's meant for use cases like reminding yourself about lessons you've learned in books, to keep yourself inspired, or for encoding tidbits from short term to long term memory.
The website looks underwhelming, but the app is amazing. The more I use it, the more it's flexibility impresses me. There are lots of options to review the cards, and it'll use card data to make quizzes, etc for you.
Yep, I've used Anki for years and moved over to Flashcards deluxe because after a few months on both noticed little difference in its algorithm compared to Anki. I find the mobile interface of Flashcards deluxe to be a whole lot less kludgy than Anki and the developer to be a whole lot more responsive.
Anki has many features but I found it too complicated and I didn't like the UI, nor having to sync across devices. So I decided to develop a basic, simpler alternative, a web app that can also be installed in the home screen of an iOS or Android device, https://omnimemory.com
I would like to recommend Mnemosyne [1] as an alternative to Anki. It uses a very similar algorithm for spaced repetition (based on SM2), but has a simpler and cleaner UI.
[+] [-] gjcourt|10 years ago|reply
Memorang was designed from the ground up to be the next generation adaptive learning platform. In fact many hard-core Anki users have switched over to our platform and love it! The main difference is in the ease of use of both creating and consuming content. Anki has the underpinnings of supermemo, which is designed for the ideal learner. In a couple of experiments that we've done partnered with large institutions, one still underway, we have shown that most students are not "ideal learners" in that most still cram right before big exams or deadlines. The original study focused on efficacy, you can find the slides we did for an NSF sponsored presentation here http://www.slideshare.net/gjcourt/memorang-nsf-mooc-2014. The latest study is still in the works, but will involve significantly more data.
Anki is a fantastic program and many people love and use it everyday. If you have loved and used Anki as much as we have, then give Memorang a try and see what you think! (or come help us improve the future of learning https://www.memorangapp.com/jobs)
Edit: Read about our data-model here http://blog.memorangapp.com/post/108094496626/tags-more-how-...
[+] [-] yermierc|10 years ago|reply
While many people may love Anki, you can count me out. I used it extensively during my first 2 years of medical school along with trying physical cards, Quizlet, and even my own custom batch files and macros. I think that it works for a very particular use case, and you need to fully commit to it to get the intended benefits.
My personal belief is that an "adaptive" learning system doesn't just adapt to the spacing effect, but to your study habits, emotional state, learning style, and even the global activity linked to certain concepts. (e.g. If you have a centralized API, you can track which facts learners struggle with and use the algorithms weight those facts for first-time learners). Learning isn't just meant to be something you do in isolation - there is a community aspect and there are endless things you can with a big data approach.
Our goal is to take spaced repetition and this new concept of meta-adaptivity and apply it to the masses, not just the hardcore users. Yeah, it sounds like a fancy vision but we're further along than you'd think. Would love to start a discussion on this and possibly get more manpower on making this a reality. (I dropped my career as a surgeon to make this happen, so we're all-in at this point).
A few references:
1. Dyrbye LN, Thomas MR, Shanafelt TD. Systematic review of depression, anxiety, and other indicators of psychological distress among U.S. and Canadian medical students. Acad Med. 2006 Apr;81(4):354-73. Review. PubMed PMID: 16565188.
2. Beard C, Clegg S, Smith K. Acknowledging the affective in higher education. BRIT EDUC RES J. 2007; 33(2): 235–252
3. Burleson W, Picard R. Affective Agents: Sustaining Motivation to Learn Through Failure and a State of “Stuck”. Social and Emotional Intelligence in Learning Environments Workshop in conjunction with the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Maceio-Alagoas, Brasil. August 31, 2004. http://affect.media.mit.edu/pdfs/04.burleson-picard.pdf
4. Durlak JA, Weissberg RP, Dymnicki AB, Taylor RD, Schellinger KB. The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Dev. 2011 Jan-Feb;82(1):405-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x. PubMed PMID: 21291449.
[+] [-] cle|10 years ago|reply
I have a very large Anki deck that I've spent years building and curating, I'm not interested in surrendering all that labor to a closed ecosystem that may or may not be around in the future....
[+] [-] tunesmith|10 years ago|reply
I'm just concluding that off of basic scale. After using Anki for a couple of coursera courses and being overwhelmed with cards for months until it calmed down, I realized there was no way I would have been able to keep up with retaining all learned knowledge in college, several classes per semester. The Anki review burden just would have been too great.
[+] [-] ansgri|10 years ago|reply
You do really address the issues that prevent me from using Anki, and I'd be happy to pay for it once you do have that API.
[+] [-] polartx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bravura|10 years ago|reply
I don't see it on your site or on Anki's.
[+] [-] xiaoma|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] breitling|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashleyblackmore|10 years ago|reply
* Thousands of free decks
* An open ecosystem
* Source code
* Doesn't spam your email
* Isn't just a straightforward monetisation of anki's general premise
I could see some value being produced from this, but it just isn't there right now.
[+] [-] shobhitverma|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thelearningblvd|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] such_a_casual|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ERGuy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cblop|10 years ago|reply
My problem was that a job and location change altered my daily routine entirely, so I stopped reviewing the cards. One year later, I have forgotten most of the characters I knew. However, the characters I learned while living in Japan, in context, are still fresh in my mind.
I think that spaced repetition isn't the memory panacea it's always touted to be. It's a great tool for cramming, but soon becomes a pain when you have hundreds of cards to review every day. I've heard good things about the goldlist method, a much more low-tech pen and paper approach. Does anyone have any experience with this technique? It claims to be better for long-term memory: http://huliganov.tv/goldlist-eu/
[+] [-] wahnfrieden|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwc|10 years ago|reply
If you have hundreds to review each day then you've gone nuts adding new items too fast. I know, because I've done exactly that and have seen tons of other people make the same mistake. Adding something like 5-10 new items per day (max) keeps things manageable in the long run. I would suggest that if you're spending more than 10-15 minutes in review that you stop adding new items until your review is under control.
Another problem I've had that seems in common with others is that using SRS is somewhat addictive, feels productive, and gives you nice concrete numbers to gauge your "progress". Many people, like me, fall into the trap of spending more and more time doing SRS, displacing other parts of the curriculum.
> However, the characters I learned while living in Japan, in context, are still fresh in my mind.
So much this. I haven't lived abroad, but I listen to podcasts and other media in my target languages. Things that I've heard and looked up and then heard again multiple times are pretty much permanent now. However memory works, this seems to trigger "this is important and useful, don't lose it!"
[+] [-] pmoriarty|10 years ago|reply
A great intro to it is an article called "Leave me alone! Can't you see I'm learning your language?"[3]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_physical_response
[2] - http://www.tpr-world.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Catego...
[3] - http://wolofresources.org/language/letmealonech1ch2.htm
[+] [-] mvdk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzzmarcus|10 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixxq8moh4pg
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tormeh|10 years ago|reply
Why is this still a problem in Linux-land? Why can't we just make some but not all packages rolling-release? Making Anki rolling-release won't make the distro unstable by any sensible meaning of the word.
[+] [-] temp|10 years ago|reply
Does that include Anki's dependencies? And if it does, does it include all other packages that depend upon Anki's dependencies?
Also, does it include thousands of other packages similar to Anki that also "won't make the distro unstable by any sensible meaning of the word"?
Don't think you'll have a "just some rolling-release packages" distro by the end of that. Unless you think this specific package is somehow deserving of special treatment by Linux distributions (why?).
[+] [-] milosh_|10 years ago|reply
With that said, you can make some but not all packages rolling-release with apt-pinning and using stable and sid or testing which are rolling.
[+] [-] microcolonel|10 years ago|reply
I'm on Arch and I get fresh Anki same day or week.
[+] [-] tajen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandGorgon|10 years ago|reply
However, I daresay that this is a usecase that is tailormade for the mobile rather than the desktop in any which way.
I wonder why the core team is spending effort behind a desktop app, rather than go full mobile.
[1] https://archive.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_w...
[2] https://www.supermemo.com/help/smalg.htm#Anki_will_work_grea...
[+] [-] pzzz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jhund|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reinhardt1053|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.memrise.com/
[+] [-] tedks|10 years ago|reply
I use Memrise, but Anki is my extended memory. Anything I want to actually remember is there.
[+] [-] syntiux|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markbao|10 years ago|reply
It's no replacement for actually learning the concepts, but they help in drilling down the foundational knowledge that helps me understand the bigger-picture concepts better.
[+] [-] dorfsmay|10 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMemo
https://www.supermemo.com/help/faq/memory.htm
[+] [-] omarish|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markm248|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sidedishes|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tangled_zans|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shank|10 years ago|reply
Gwern has an excellent overview of spatial repetition software too: http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition
[+] [-] EvanL|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammerbrostime|10 years ago|reply
The synchronization feature between devices has also proven to be very useful, as I use my laptop usually to put in new questions, but use the iPhone app to quiz myself whenever I have a few spare minutes during the day (waiting in line, walking to work, etc).
UI is a little wonky at times, but its features and flexibility more than makes up for it for a dedicated student.
[+] [-] polymath21|10 years ago|reply
It's meant for use cases like reminding yourself about lessons you've learned in books, to keep yourself inspired, or for encoding tidbits from short term to long term memory.
Here's a recent Lifehacker post about us: http://lifehacker.com/remembered-io-offers-smart-reminders-t...
[+] [-] bigethan|10 years ago|reply
The website looks underwhelming, but the app is amazing. The more I use it, the more it's flexibility impresses me. There are lots of options to review the cards, and it'll use card data to make quizzes, etc for you.
[+] [-] capedape|10 years ago|reply
http://mnemosyne-proj.org/ is pretty good too.
[+] [-] xavi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tangled_zans|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeris|10 years ago|reply
https://ankiweb.net
[+] [-] mtau|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://mnemosyne-proj.org/