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Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

domenic.me

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Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#331

Post by Tomte »

edanm wrote: post #328
aaldrick wrote: post #232

I see a lot of discussion about SRS, and I think most can agree they have improved. What I would like to see covered is a more vague area, but almost more important: It’s the space in between reading/understanding something and the SRS. There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs (web browser, PDF readers etc.) into popular SRS (Anki, Mochi etc.). They should wo…

I've never used it, but my understanding is that something that does this is considered a "killer feature" of Supermemo. It has a mode that lets you read text (via a PDF viewer) and lets you create flashcards as you read in some kind of semi-automated way. Or something like that. Like I said, I never used it.

No, not PDF, only HTML. There are community companion programs like SuperMemo Assistant, that enhance SM, but it‘s all fiddly.

I paid for two SM versions and went back to Anki. It‘s very idiodyncratic, the user interface is atrocious (in the latest version it finally, finally added thumbs up/down icons for grading the answer —- before that you had to remember whether 1 is good and 5 is bad or vice versa).

SM is fascinating (including task management, sleep cycle tracker etc.), but it‘s held back by its technological choices (only support for Edge or IE, and Edge only in the newest version), and for incremental reading you‘ll be mostly ingesting Wikipedia articles, because PDF isn‘t supported.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#332

Post by Tomte »

url00 wrote: post #218
InkCanon wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting post here awhile back about autonomy and motivation. The gist was people's motivation is proportional to their autonomy. This is quite intuitive, you can see people are really motivated when they have autonomy (think kids with Minecraft, musicians with instruments). One terrible thing about Anki is that it probably is horrible for autonomy. Quite possibly using anki actually has a negative ef…

That sounds very interesting! Do you still have a link to that post?

Look up Deci/Ryan, self determination theory.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#333

Post by aaldrick »

kqr wrote: post #318
aaldrick wrote: post #232

I see a lot of discussion about SRS, and I think most can agree they have improved. What I would like to see covered is a more vague area, but almost more important: It’s the space in between reading/understanding something and the SRS. There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs (web browser, PDF readers etc.) into popular SRS (Anki, Mochi etc.). They should wo…

> There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs I think this is a common misunderstanding. Half the benefit of SRS comes from working out what the flashcards are. You have to circle around a concept, look for similarities, differences, examples, generalisations, properties, etc. Is it hard work? Yes. Does it help understanding? Massively. This is also a very diffi…

Fair point, please see my comment in response to allenu, in this same thread, for a detailed view.

I did not mean to glaze over this aspect, I am aware this is very important. I can not and do not use AI for automating flashcards for this reason alone. But, I think my point still stands, getting information from one disparate app into another adds a lot of friction (saving it somewhere, copy and pasting and yada yada) to something that (I believe) should be as easy as possible. We have 1 click instant payment, but I can't have 1 click get this into some sort of inbox in Anki ready to flashcard-ify?

To be honest, I have a whole frustration with apps and windows that I'm still trying to word, but fundamentally all we are doing when we are "computing" is moving information around. I wish that information was a first class citizen at the OS level that could be leveraged by any app immediately. Utopian view but this stuff ain't gonna think about itself.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#334

Post by aaldrick »

allenu wrote: post #286
aaldrick wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried Fresh Cards so thank you for developing that app, and trying to add cool new software into the space. Great question. Here's one way to do it: The first is how clunky the process of going from X to flashcard feels to the end user. One way to deal with the fact that we are crossing software border is to add an extra step where highlighting something allows you to go into an "inbox" before any cards are made…

I appreciate the detailed answer. That's a really good point about the software boundary and how that adds friction to just creating cards in the first place. I like the idea of an inbox where you just toss things you think are worth remembering and maybe having a browser plugin or OS shortcut to save highlighted bits of info, but not necessarily creating a flashcard immediately from it. There's definitely some concr…

No problem - I'm happy to help. I spend way too much time thinking about this type of stuff.

I'm glad this has resonated, good luck with the prototypes. Let me know if you ever want more feedback.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#335

Post by aaldrick »

jkmcf wrote: post #314
aaldrick wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried Fresh Cards so thank you for developing that app, and trying to add cool new software into the space. Great question. Here's one way to do it: The first is how clunky the process of going from X to flashcard feels to the end user. One way to deal with the fact that we are crossing software border is to add an extra step where highlighting something allows you to go into an "inbox" before any cards are made…

The INBOX idea would be a great improvement! That plus a reminder to process your INBOX after N time or size. The hardest part of any system is making it a habit.

I agree, we need something with a caring UX which encourages habit-forming. I feel like this space is very underexplored, especially considering the 1000s of note-taking adjacent apps made in the last decade.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#336

Post by aaldrick »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #304
aaldrick wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't thought of this; thank you for bringing this up. I will actually read into this. I didn't write it in my original comment, but I almost mentioned the OS because I'm coming round to the idea (albeit slowly) that the OS needs to provide some sort of hook into this capability natively for both maximum adoption and also ease of use (for both developer and end user). Perhaps Shortcuts are now powerful enough to d…

> the OS needs to provide some sort of hook into this capability natively for both maximum adoption and also ease of use (for both developer and end user) I’m absolutely of this mind, but unfortunately it also depends on developers’ willingness to make use of these hooks, and it’s becoming increasingly uncommon for third party apps to have any integration or automation affordances, especially any specific to any part…

A great shame, I see your point. I guess it comes down to the developer treating their product as something that could "help people" or something that "pays the bills". Hopefully the former would lead them to caring enough to spend the extra time for these significant QoL improvements.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#337

Post by pastage »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #276
sn9 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that but it's completely revolutionized the way medical students study. IIRC the effect was so profound they had to modify the structure of some tests or something to that effect. And polyglots have been using SRS for years. As always, the real problem when people fail to do something that works is psychological, not technical. I'd say anyone who made an Ozempic for motivation would make a killing, but I beli…

I'm not so sure. My brother's medical school had to tell students they had to study the actual material rather than Anki decks because so many students were failing tests.

Doing anki cards with words two hours every day, and not doing any reading of material is very detrimental for me.

I do not study medicin, but for language I have to actually be able to use what I memorize. Knowing how to use words is harder than it sounds, you need context. A common mistake when constructing sentences is getting the tone wrong and choosing the wrong synonyms.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#338

Post by aaldrick »

Tomte wrote: post #331
edanm wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used it, but my understanding is that something that does this is considered a "killer feature" of Supermemo. It has a mode that lets you read text (via a PDF viewer) and lets you create flashcards as you read in some kind of semi-automated way. Or something like that. Like I said, I never used it.

No, not PDF, only HTML. There are community companion programs like SuperMemo Assistant, that enhance SM, but it‘s all fiddly. I paid for two SM versions and went back to Anki. It‘s very idiodyncratic, the user interface is atrocious (in the latest version it finally, finally added thumbs up/down icons for grading the answer —- before that you had to remember whether 1 is good and 5 is bad or vice versa). SM is fasci…

+1 SM is really interesting. Supermemo.guru (URL) is a fascinating resource written by a fascinating person (the creator of Supermemo), but the software is so unusable that it immediately shoots itself in the foot (or head). I don't think anyone should ever use it, but people should take away from it interesting concepts that they can use when writing new software.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#339

Post by aaldrick »

HSO wrote: post #309
aaldrick wrote: post #232

I see a lot of discussion about SRS, and I think most can agree they have improved. What I would like to see covered is a more vague area, but almost more important: It’s the space in between reading/understanding something and the SRS. There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs (web browser, PDF readers etc.) into popular SRS (Anki, Mochi etc.). They should wo…

On Mac, you could make a little Shortcut that accepts your text selection or maybe even a screenshot and sends it to AnkiConnect to make a new note. Add this Shortcut to your share sheet and you can create new notes from any app. Later, go over the notes in Anki and add questions or if really lazy send the backsides to an LLM to create those questions.

Thank you - I hadn't considered this.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#340

Post by aaldrick »

fplonka wrote: post #289
aaldrick wrote: post #232

I see a lot of discussion about SRS, and I think most can agree they have improved. What I would like to see covered is a more vague area, but almost more important: It’s the space in between reading/understanding something and the SRS. There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs (web browser, PDF readers etc.) into popular SRS (Anki, Mochi etc.). They should wo…

This mostly works with Mochi - you can paste PDFs etc into ChatGPT and the Mochi markdown format is simple, so it can generate flashcards for you (I have the format explained in my system prompt so I don't have to re-explain it every time). This synergizes nicely with the fact that you really want to understand something before you make flashcards from it. If you pay for Mochi you also get API access, so one could ma…

Yes, I do something like this now. It definitely does do the job. I just wonder if there could be something more, something smoother perhaps, and the API access could do the trick.
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