Thursday, December 23, 2010

Anki - Flashcards

I first learnt about Anki (http://ankisrs.net/) from a blog about learning Japanese which suggested it as one of the top 5 applications for learning Japanese. I started using it to prepare for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficency Test) which I took earlier this month.

The application allows you to create virtual flashcards containing a question/answer or more generically, just the front of the cards and the back of the card. You can then go through the flashcards and indicate if you know the fact and if so, how well. This allows Anki to schedule when it will next show you the card. For facts you don't know, the card will show up again soon, and for cards which you do know, the time until they next show up are based on how well you indicate you know the fact and how often you have previously known the fact.

I quite liked the the learning style with Anki, so I started using it when revising for the Core Spring 3.0 Certification exam which I sat this morning. As I was going over the material I would just add questions into Anki covering that material. This let me review material quickly and check up on what I knew, it also let me drill the facts I was having trouble with.

Where it really came into its own though, was the day before the exam once I had all the facts I needed in Anki, I used the "cram" mode which reduces the time in-between questions, this lets you go through all the cards at once, constantly being asked the ones you are getting wrong and delaying the ones you know well until later.

An useful feature which I wasn't able to take advantage of was the Android/iPhone apps which would have let me review cards on the move.

Overall, Anki has been a useful tool, both for my Japanese studies and in other applications, if you have something you need to learn that can be distilled into simple facts, it might be worth giving it a go. One thing I would suggest is to start using it as soon as possible in your studying and the constant learning element of it means you are reviewing material before you've finished learning everything.

Labels: , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home