I've been both busy and without anything extremely relevant to say; rather than post fluff, I'll wait to I have something of substance to post.In response to a question asked in a previous post: How do I format my flashcards in SuperMemo?
There are efficient ways of quickly importing flashcards in SuperMemo using excel, Q&A .txt files, and so on, but one unnecessary step that I enjoy taking is making each flashcard within SuperMemo itself. I do this by either pressing "ALT + A" to create a new flashcard or extract them from a topic as if I were incremental reading.
For example, to make flashcards of Pimsleur Spanish 1, I create a topic that features a picture of the product's packaging. As I hear a phrase that challenges my knowledge of Spanish, inside of that topic I record that phrase in English and then in Spanish; then I create an extract of what I just wrote down. After the lesson is done, I go through the extracted topics and make flashcards of that material. This way, the picture is featured in each Pimsleur Spanish flashcard (Pictures seem to be better at words in signaling what kind of knowledge is trying to be remembered).
Also, even though it is unnecessary I enjoy adding pictures to some of my newly created flashcards. I have a picture database of more than 2,000 pictures, and sometimes I will select a random picture to be shown when the answer is shown; sometimes the picture is relevant, sometimes it isn't. It's important that some pictures only be shown at the ANSWER portion of the flashcard, because if it were shown during the QUESTION portion the important link between the question and answer might be "overwritten" by the link between the picture and the answer. This is part of the reason why Rosetta Stone is so easy to cheat on, but that sounds like the subject of another post altogether, as I've had many friends of mine ask me if they should invest hundreds of dollars into that program... (Back to flashcard formatting)
The process of making flashcards from the topics can be time consuming, so while I make these flashcards I enjoy watching TV programs, "let's play" YouTube videos of long RPGs that I would love to play but don't have time for (I'm watching Mass Effect 1 now), my backlog of unwatched Colbert Report and Daily Show episodes and other general entertainment. It overall lengthens the amount of time spent making flashcards, but I get both the satisfaction of increasing my flashcard count AND being entertained.I'm not against efficiently making flashcards using various methods (I had to do so when importing all of the Remembering the Kanji into SuperMemo), but sometimes I enjoy doing a few things inefficiently so I can have more fun.
This have happened to me several times when using Anki. I add notes for well structured cards and progress fine in the beginning and feel I really see the benefits of using Anki. A few weeks with new cards to learn every day I start to get tired. I still progress fine with the cards already seen but new cards gets harder and harder to learn. After a few days I drop the routine completely as I feel that I am bored when using Anki. A few days now and then I go back to Anki only reviewing cards that I seen trying to get back on track until I drop it completly.
ReplyDeleteThen a few weeks pass before I start to think of Anki again as it is a great tool to learn things with and start to create new decks to learn again. So how do I best avoid the "burnout"? Do you add new stuff every day or do you more focus on repeating things you have seen once and add new stuff now and then?
Hi, I am surprised that you did create cards multitasking your attention with tv shows etc. Do you keep doing this practice? And how is that the process is not fun enough by itself? assuming you were fre elearning Spanish.
ReplyDeleteYes, usually multi tasking is a bad idea. I don't really consider this multi tasking though, because I try to formulate the flashcard and write it down in my notes app as-is, so the most intense thinking is done beforehand; adding the flashcards to SuperMemo is just a formality that really doesn't require thinking. During that time I like to watch TV, listen to podcasts, etc. I guess I try to goof off in micro doses whenever possible. Right now I'm watching Season 8 of the Simpsons while I "publish" my flashcards. 🤣
DeleteAbout using random pictures in items. Did you experienced some degree of unwanted links or weighted relationships when going neural? i.e. unrelated items are linked between them for using the same image registry member; but this link is not menaingful or semantic.
ReplyDeleteKInf od recently, I started to be really systematic about images, so I reuse them for IR or language related cards having in minf the semantic connection.
As long as the pictures are displayed AFTER you display the answer, I have had no ill effects. Sometimes it's kind of like finding easter eggs in video games; I remember them faintly, but for the most part they make doing my flashcards that much more fun.
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