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Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

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Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#21

Post by pessimizer »

I've been thinking about a similar thing lately, but as an Anki plugin: while reading the docs/documentation/tutorial, and a fact is mentioned that needs to be memorized, click on it to add a card it to that doc's designated Anki deck, then immediately answer it in Anki (putting it into the rotation.)

I've also been thinking of this in terms of live lectures, where the lecturer could send a card to their students' lecture deck as the concept is explained.

So study homework and quizzes etc. would be replaced by Anki, and classwork could be split between lectures that introduce new concepts and cards and guided programming assignments.

If people do their Anki, they'll remember the facts against their will if the questions are designed well enough. The instructor could concentrate on guiding them through applying those facts in practice.

edit: it's how I tend to do my decks. For example I have a pretty good Git deck that I'm refining (and want to add more advanced usage to) that just takes on the git book at git-scm.com in order, with a card for each individual fact (and an excerpt from the text), tagged with the chapter where the fact is first mentioned. After you're done with a chapter, you can add it into the rotation with "custom study." Once you're done, you can just play with git, instead of constantly context-switching between your sandbox and the docs, or having complete blind spots about things you've had no reason to try yet.

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edit 2: I really like this implementation, and the simplicity of the questions. Are they from your own deck?

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#22

Post by revskill »

Spaced repetition doesn't work though. Forced study is the worst.

Let the mind and heart decide what to do next, is still best strategy.

It's not a joke though, the result is, people are still using ORM to do data stuff, instead of ...(not sure about this).

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#23

Post by codybontecou »

revskill wrote: post #22

Spaced repetition doesn't work though. Forced study is the worst. Let the mind and heart decide what to do next, is still best strategy. It's not a joke though, the result is, people are still using ORM to do data stuff, instead of ...(not sure about this).

Do you feel the same way about learning a non-programming language?

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#24

Post by revskill »

codybontecou wrote: post #23
revskill wrote: post #22

Spaced repetition doesn't work though. Forced study is the worst. Let the mind and heart decide what to do next, is still best strategy. It's not a joke though, the result is, people are still using ORM to do data stuff, instead of ...(not sure about this).

Do you feel the same way about learning a non-programming language?

Yes. The same.

I natually learnt something for all i knew.

Forced study is just like a hack, because your mind is still out of control.

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#25

Post by pessimizer »

akudha wrote: post #13
tomxor wrote: post #3

Sorry but this will not help you learn JavaScript. I am sure it will help you remember built-ins and terminology, but using PLs is far more than a human memory game, I know JS pretty thoroughly and cannot recall every Math or Array method, it's just not very important. If you want to get better at any PL, write it, write it, write it. If you don't know what to write, I'd recommend heading over to somewhere like rosse…

I was looking at some human language learning material. One of the exercises in it was to rearrange jumbled words into a meaningful sentence. That got me thinking, what sort of exercises can we borrow from human language learning to learn programming? A ten line jumbled function that the learner needs to order correctly? A small function with missing lines or wrong conditions that the learner can fix, to get the func…

For me, those things are too complicated for a card. I want my cards to drill one thing. I might even want five cards to drill one thing five times, but with five different contexts. I want them to help me retain facts, like a syntax, a library, configuration, keywords, and enumerations/flags/switches with arbitrary names.

Programming practice is what I do after I have (or while I'm putting) these facts at my fingertips.

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#26

Post by barefootford »

Fun idea. I'm a big Anki fan for learning languages. I'd consider turning off case sensitivity and ensure you're stripping spaces and making it as easy as possible to match answers. If you have to manually type in the answer its a pain to remember what case the answer should be in too. Still not sure what the sweet spot is for click vs typing outside of language context.

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#28

Post by delabroj »

pessimizer wrote: post #21

I've been thinking about a similar thing lately, but as an Anki plugin: while reading the docs/documentation/tutorial, and a fact is mentioned that needs to be memorized, click on it to add a card it to that doc's designated Anki deck, then immediately answer it in Anki (putting it into the rotation.) I've also been thinking of this in terms of live lectures, where the lecturer could send a card to their students' le…

Yeah, I adapted them from my JS Anki deck. Also ended up cutting out a lot of stuff out that turned out being less important than I'd thought as a new learner of JS. I'm hoping the courses are more useful than those a learner would create themselves since as a proficient JS user I have a better idea of what skills are actually needed.

Similar to your thoughts, I'd love for this or something similar to eventually replace textbooks. It'd be great to have experts in every field build interactive mastery courses that help you both learn quickly and retain the knowledge long term.

Re: Show HN: SkillPress – Learn JavaScript via spaced repetition and active recall

#30

Post by delabroj »

ecshafer wrote: post #27

I don't see how this would be useful for learning JavaScript at all. It is definition trivia, maybe for some kind of CS1 quiz this would be useful. But the way to learn JavaScript is to write Javascript .

Thanks for checking it out - it starts out with definitions and then builds into more interactive cards focused around reading and writing code.

Once you've completed 2-3 study sessions (1 study session = 10 cards answered correctly) you should be seeing a lot more code-focused cards.

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