tobberoth wrote:

That's not true. It takes between 7 and 10 consecutive successful reviews at normal in Anki to make a fact disappear. It is spaced so many years into the future that you won't live to see it. If you mean it takes a lot to sustain your continued additions to the SRS, true. But sustaining facts you want to learn now is not a problem.

That's a slight exaggeration, but it's broadly correct.  It does take a lot to sustain facts learned - but you have to weigh it up against alternatives.  If you're actually not going to need that knowledge in depth later on, fine, forget it.  If, say, you're doing a degree that keeps building on old material, it's far less effort to SRS every day than to constantly forget and re-learn old material.

The idea of SRSing for my US History courses at my university was hampered a bit because... I just don't care enough to really *want* remember it longer than the final.

Japanese is something I care much more about.

sethg wrote:

The idea of SRSing for my US History courses at my university was hampered a bit because... I just don't care enough to really *want* remember it longer than the final.

Japanese is something I care much more about.

I had the same experience and totally agree. Using an SRS for subjects you're not interested in might be practical, but if your reviews are boring, you're probably not going to want to do them at all. I think that using an SRS to study subjects you're really interested in could be cool and very useful, but that for a lot of courses, it might just end up being a huge drag and actually turn you off from a course even more. Not to mention that you then have to decide exactly what should or shouldn't get entered in, how to format your cards, how your questions should be phrased (since a lot of the time your notes/textbooks won't be written in a way where they can be copied verbatim into the SRS like when sentence-mining), etc. Ironically, I found that trying to use an SRS for some of my high school courses was way too time-consuming and was actually less effective/efficient than just reading and rereading notes and doing homework problems.

Last edited by shirokuro (2009 December 17, 1:05 am)

emreth wrote:

I have no kids but I'm currently pregnant and always thinking about how my kids futures are going to be, especially concerning school. I'm definitely going to introduce them to SRS and have them at least try it out a little. I wish I had known about SRS when I was in high school, totally would've used it for Math and other stuff.

My wife is going to give birth soon and I've been thinking about SRS and how it will help my child out. I think that if my child uses it from an early age on, like let's say elementary school, with things like vocabulary (SAT words, GRE words), historical facts, literature vocabulary (theme, plot, etc etc), science and math equations, then SRS is the way to go. However, SRS cannot help the child with problem solving or critical thinking. Give the child the facts through SRS but also give the child time to process those facts and create informed arguments. There's a fine line between the two but both are needed and SRS is the key for the former. I can't see how SRSing the facts is bad.

alyks wrote:

An SRS does not make a smart man, a smart man uses an SRS.

Spoken like a sage.

Kind of related to the pre university topic - what did you decide about study in Japan, Alyks? I know you sat for the monbusho exam. Do you feel you're still on track for your April deadline?

IceCream wrote:

i think some of you may be overestimating children's ability to think like adults, and underestimating their natural learning skills.
Kids like fun things, games, and doing things in real life. Sit it in front of an srs full of facts, it will be bored to tears and will probably hate it forever.

　I think that people have to tell apart reality from their own biased ideas. Lots of times boredom doesn't come from the things we do, but from the way we do things. I.e. just because you think something is boring it doesn't mean that it has to be that way always.

SRS is a tool, and you are the one who chooses how to use it. You can always try to do things in a different way if you feel that the way you use the tool is a drag.

If someone wants to try to have their kids to use SRS, remember that when you try to advice someone to do something new or in a new way, there will be a natural resistance to change, even if the change is for the better. So, trying to convince someone to try to do something new just because it gives better results is not enough. You have to convince them that this new thing not only works better, but also feels better. Applying this to SRS and kids, you have to make the SRS "seduce" your kids. Use color, images, audio, video, record audio tracks for their use, have them record their own audio tracks and using them, let them search for images on internet, or (why not) draw their own pictures and use all of that as part of their SRS experience.

It is also important to use the tool properly, too little and it doesn't bear fruits; too much it it produces burnout.

Last, but not least, if you want to show them something, it is because you know from your own experience that it is useful. If they see you using an SRS to your advantage and enjoying yourself they will feel a natural curiosity for what you do.  On the other hand, if they don't see you using the tool, or see that it causes you stress instead of helping you, nothing will convince them of giving it a try. It's like people complain that their kids don't study, while their kids have never seen them with a book on their hands.

P.D.: Imagine you use an Anki deck to teach your kids, let's say, numbers, shapes, animals and simple nouns. Have the question to be a recording of your own voice (i.e. : "2 brown cats" or "a red circle"), and the answer to be a picture. Then your kid would listen to the question and draw and answer and check it against the correct answer. The same could go the other way, your kid sees a picture, says the answer (ideally using the voice recording plugin) and then checks it against a recording of your voice. Now imagine that 20 years have passed and you seat with your now adult son/daughter and see together your old decks and you'll have some of the geekiest quality time you can ever have.