Spaced-repetition (SRS) flashcard options for teaching

Here is a post about spaced-repetition (SRS) flashcard options for teaching, I wrote on my other blog, Teaching with Smartphones.

Please take a look and tell me what you think!

Introducing Anki to the classroom

Last semester, I taught my Freshman English (Economics faculty) class in a traditional way - without Anki, smartphones, or computers.  We studied a set curriculum with regular, consistent testing.

This semester, the plan is to introduced Anki into the classroom and continue with the same curriculum and testing.  I hope to find out if using Anki increases my students' scores.  I also plan on using a questionnaire to find out the students' attitudes and feelings toward using Anki and smartphones in class.

Today, with the help of a student assistant who speaks Japanese and English, I introduced Anki to my class of 24 students.  Hopefully, I clearly explained the general idea and the plan to use it in class.

As many of my students are not very computer savvy, it basically took the whole 45-minute class to walk them through the process of signing up for a free account on ankiweb.net .

From past experience with students using cell phone email accounts (which cannot receive the confirmation email) and forgetting passwords, I had the students all use their standardized, university email address and the same, simple password.  This will allow for troubleshooting of account problems to be done much more easily.

The plan is to meet in the computer lab every Monday for the students to make their own cards from the class materials.  During the other three days of the class in the week, as part of the learning process, the students will work in pairs to learn how to use Anki correctly and effectively.  At least, that is the plan for now...

Regaining control of large Anki decks

Recently, my google alerts led me to this interesting article by Bill Powell at "Keep What You Learn."

Just the day before, I had been having similar problems with with the Anki decks I have made from my Japanese - Rosetta Stone materials. Some of the decks are very large, and reviews can feel disjointed and disconnected, all of which can be very discouraging...

So I tried something that might be helpful. With my primary Rosetta Stone deck of almost 3000 cards, I had gotten behind in my reviews to the tune of almost 1500 cards. It seemed hopeless. So I decided to use the tags to only study the cards from the most recent lesson - about 260 cards. This did two things that really seemed to help.

One was psychological: suddenly the number of reviews did not seem overwhelming, and I felt empowered to study in a dedicated fashion. I know all the other reviews are waiting out there for me, but reviewing now felt like a positive experience. I'm excited again and pushing myself to zero out the deck.

The second thing was that now all the cards were from the same lesson: all about food, cooking, tools, building, etc. They were clustered again, and the context helped reinforce the connections, making it easier to remember and learn.

So perhaps the key is to break up large decks into more manageable chunks, both in terms of number and content? It creates the feeling of control and progress, something vital to keep up the motivation to study!

On a similar note, I have a review deck for the first 2000 kanji that I keep chipping away at. I also have a deck of new kanji with 330 cards and climbing that I am able to zero out every morning - a small victory that keeps me motivated!

Any thoughts?

Anki guest post

I realized that I had not posted the link to the guest post I had written about why I think learners should use Anki, so here it is:

http://www.everydaylanguagelearner.com/2012/01/12/anki-bringing-flashcards-out-of-stone-age/

Smart Phone Anki classes

In an earlier post, I wrote about the significant changes I made in a class from first to second semester:

1) meeting once a week in a computer lab so students could make their own decks and cards

2) incorporating more hands-on pair Anki work with student pairs quizzing each other on their decks via smart phones in class.

It will be interesting to compare their questionnaire and Anki usage statistic results as it was the same group of students studying the same material. However, that is for another post and/or another paper.

Other opportunities I had in this past semester to try different ways of teaching with Anki were two English Communication classes. These are elective classes, so the students usually are motivated, but also the teacher has the freedom to teach whatever they want.

As many teachers do not have ready access to computer labs, but more and more students have smart phones (a term which will also include other devices like iPod Touches and iPads), I decided to incorporate what I had learned about teaching with Anki from first semester into the classroom but by mobile device only.

An interesting side note: When I first started teaching in Tokyo three years ago, very few students had western-style smart phones (primarily iPhones). The Japanese cell phones very were very advanced in their own way but did not have the same finger swipe/drag interface or large, bright screens for Internet browsing, media or games. Now, however, almost all of my students either have iPhones or some type of Android based smart phone.

The plan worked out that at least half of the students had smart phones, and so with pair work, there was always be enough hardware in the class. I also brought my own iPod Touch and netbook (laptop) to class to lend to student pairs in case of battery failure or other problems.

Overall, the classes were successful in terms of exposing students to Anki and helping me see strengths and weaknesses in my attempts to use Anki in the classroom.
Many of the problems were related to classroom management, technological problems, and other details.

Sometimes all the time spent explaining Anki to students, helping them fix problems with decks/cards/username/password in class, waiting for students to login in, keeping students focused on task and not speaking Japanese with each other, etc., seemed quite inefficient and felt very frustrating. However, if we feel that Anki is important enough that our students should understand it and learn how to use it, then this may be the price to pay. There may never be a perfect system, but by our successes and failures, we can get better and better at it...

Student or teacher generated cards?

Based on my first semester attempt to incorporate AnkiWeb into my Freshman (first year) Economics faculty classroom, I made some changes in the second semester. One of those was to have the class meet once a week in a computer lab to create their own cards.

In the first semester, I created a class account on AnkiWeb. Then I created individual decks for each student from the class materials on my Anki desktop client program which were uploaded to AnkiWeb. The students were then shown AnkiWeb in class and given the shared username and password for the class account. There were three main reasons for this:

1) It allowed me to ensure the accuracy and consistency of the cards.

2) I was able to easily access each student's deck to monitor their progress.

3) I did not have access to a computer lab for the class.

However, at the end of the semester, I realized that even if students successfully used AnkiWeb and realized it potential, they would not necessarily be able to use it on their own. Due to my desire for control of and access to student decks, I had not created independent users of AnkiWeb.

So, in the second semester, I arranged for the class to meet every Monday in a computer lab. This allowed the students to create their own AnkiWeb accounts and cards from class materials. Overall, I feel that it was successful in creating more independence; however, there were some other difficulties that should be addressed.

When students were absent on a Monday, they would obviously fall behind in terms of creating cards. I asked those students to make the cards on their own time, but sometimes they would not and would fall behind. The same would happen with students who were late or who were slow typists.

Also, students would often make mistakes in terms of the content or the formatting of the cards. They would sometimes mistakenly make a new deck every class, creating multiple decks and subsequent confusion. With a class of 20, it was difficult to monitor all the students in the lab to make sure everything was going smoothly.

And finally, by not having direct access and control of student decks as I did in the first semester, it was very difficult check students decks for any of the problems discussed above.

With the students in the computer lab, I could look at their decks via AnkiWeb, but the interface only allows a very limited ability to examine and search for cards. It was also very time consuming in a 45-minute class period.

I did collect their usernames and passwords so I could access their decks directly via the Anki desktop client program. However, as the program has to be synced to each student's AnkiWeb account with a different username and password, it is also a very laborious and time consuming process.

So, there are definitely pros and cons to both student generated cards and teacher generated cards. However, in my opinion, I think creating independent users of Anki is more important than the desire/need for teacher control and access.

Perhaps the upcoming Anki 2.0 will have options to address these issues.

Published!

This past week, I received the news that the essay I wrote about my first semester of teaching with Anki has been accepted for publication in our university's inhouse journal! Hurrah!

The title is "Internet-based Spaced Repetition Learning In and Out of the Classroom: Implementation and Student Perception." Once I am done revising it based on readers' comments, I will post it on a google site.

I'm very excited because it is my first attempt to formally share what I am trying to do in the classroom with Anki. It is more focused on what I did in the classrooms and what the students thought of it; I did not try to prove the effectiveness of Anki.

I am also relieved because if we decide to stay in Japan longer than my five-year contract at Asia University, having publications will greatly help my job hunting...

It's all about time...

I met Aaron through his website, The Everyday Language Learner. He had written an interesting article about paper flash cards, and of course, I had to chime in about Anki!

So, in revenge, he asked me to write a guest post about Anki as a follow up. I was really excited to write it and thought a lot about what I wanted to say. I tried to figure out what is REALLY SPECIAL about Anki and why I am so crazy about it.

So, this post, Anki: Bringing Flashcards out of the Stone Age is my attempt to distill the importance of Anki and what I want to shout at people who refuse to use it. Sorry if that sounds a little strong, but I didn't want to write just another warm, comforting, encouraging entreaty for people to study. I wanted to cut away all the crap and look at the cold, hard reality of learning and how Anki can help.

Let me know what you think!

Cognitive Fluency - what goes on behind the scenes in our brains!

This article from the Boston Times, Easy = True, really blew my mind about how our brains work.

After reading it and thinking about all its ramifications, I radically changed my teaching (and better understood my own Japanese learning). I highly recommend you read this article. It has implications far beyond just teaching and learning.

*Update - A reader asked me to explain better how it relates to my teaching, especially in terms of Anki.

I think the key passage from the article is as follows (I put the key words in bold):

"The persuasive power of repetition, clarity, and simplicity is something that people who set out to win others’ trust - marketers, political candidates, speechwriters, suitors, and teachers - already have an intuitive sense of if they’re good at what they do. What the fluency research is showing is just how profound the effect can be, and just how it works."

The research seems to show that our brains like the information to be repeated, clear, and simple. In terms of teaching, I think if these three concepts are not present in what we do in the classroom, then our students' brains will not be happy, and therefore, they will not learn. Our students will not trust us and will not relax enough to learn effectively.

Repetition - Not only should we provide the repetition of content to the students, but our students should be able to repeat (do again and again) what we ask of them. If they can't, for whatever reason, their brains will be unhappy and they won't learn.

Clarity - Our students must understand what they are doing and why. From my own experience in Japanese language classes here in Tokyo, not understanding what the teacher is asking me to do is EXTREMELY frustrating and drives me crazy. It makes me want to quit...

Simplicity - This is not to say that the content (i.e. English) should be simple but that the activity itself should not be complicated or difficult. Again, the brain does not like things that are hard. Yes, we should challenge our students but not in a way that turns them off from learning.

So, how does this relate to Anki? Well, it seems to me that Anki could be a perfect manifestation of these three concepts. It is all about repetition. It is very clear about what a user must do and how it works. It is a very simple process, elegant even. And I think it is Anki's simplicity that is the most important. It takes the extremely difficult process of organizing, sorting, sequencing, and checking a huge amount of information and reduces it to a simple click of a button. An Anki user doesn't have to stress about all that; it takes all the worry out of the process. That freedom from stress and worry is amazing and powerful.

When I try to summarize this aspect of Anki to people, I say, "You only have to study what you NEED to study WHEN you need to study it." To me, that feels like a warm, soft blanket on a cold, rainy day...

However, how do we get our students to realize and understand all of this? That is the challenge...

"Forced" Anki use - pros and cons?

So far, I have not required my students to use Anki outside of class. One of the main reasons is that I cannot yet think of a good way to do it - i.e. accurately assess/monitor if they actually do it.

Soren, an Anki user and advocate, wrote a good article about Anki use cheating and how to stop it that discusses some really interesting ideas.

However, I think there is a larger issue. Most of us use Anki because we really want to learn our subject and know it is very effective. We have positive feelings and associations with Anki.

If we "force" (require) our students to use it AND somehow figure out a way to stop cheating, do we run the risk of alienating our students to Anki, especially to the point where they will not use it in other classes and in the future?

What is more important? Giving the students the opportunity to experience Anki in a way that will lead to some fully embracing it but allowing some to opt out? Or requiring its use, knowing that it is good for them (like vegetables)?

It is kind of a "Is the glass half full or half empty" question.

What do you think?

Maybe Anki is too easy?

We were riding the Chuo train line back to Musashisakai last night, catching up on some Anki study. As I was reviewing my cards, some of which were quite easy, I found myself thinking, "Why am I studying this card? I already know it! This is a waste of my time..."

However, I came back to reality by remembering that the secret to Anki is to review the information BEFORE you forget it. If used properly, all reviews should be that easy. It should be effortless and fun.

Maybe our students, who are used to traditional learning and studying being difficult and unpleasant, don't see Anki as serious studying? - and therefore, not worth their time.

Maybe they think the same thing as I did on the train but don't have the understanding of how Anki works to reassure them. This, perhaps, is connected to my earlier post about students needing to understand the principles and science behind Anki.

Mesqueeb, a regular reader and commentor on this blog, has offered to make a youtube video in Japanese explaining Anki that I could show my students. I think that may be an excellent idea, especially if the video can concisely and succinctly convey the key points...

Anki must meet student needs

As much as we "know" that Anki is an excellent way to learn something, conveying that to others seems quite difficult.

We explain it to students and friends, and they seem to understand it. They usually agree that it sounds good and that they would like to use it. However, not many actually use it and very few actually embrace it.

I have been thinking way too much about this, but it is helping me get down to some fundamental concepts of teaching and learning...

I think one big problem is the old "want versus need" thing. Our students want to learn English, but they don't necessarily need it. There is no internal pressure to make the effort. And since there is no pressure, they don't see a need to use Anki.

We have to create an educational framework where students can see Anki as an excellent way to meet their needs in the class.

The material in the Anki decks must be what the students are using everyday in class. It must be quizzed and tested regularly and thoroughly. They must feel like they will need everything studied before at any moment in the class. There must be constant pressure to remember, produce and process the content in many different types of activities and from many different directions.

However, it should not be all punitive, as in quizzes and tests. Students must have opportunities to succeed and feel good about what they are learning and doing. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar...

In this way, we hopefully can create that internal pressure, that need, in our students. Then, if we give them the opportunities in class to use Anki in a way to meet that need, perhaps they will embrace Anki. That should be our goal: students using Anki to succeed in our classes, and subsequently being able to succeed in all other learning situations.

Students must understand how and why Anki works

Thanks to Jennifer for making me think about this!

In her comments on an earlier post about what teachers have learned about using Anki, she describes how she gives her students a hangout explaining the science and principles behind Anki. In that way, her students understand what they are supposed to do and why.

I had tried to explain this to my students, but I suspect that between their English listening and my limited Japanese skills, they did not really understand why I was asking them to do this new thing. Yet another crazy foreign teacher, I guess...

So, I looked on the Anki website and found some Japanese language support information, mentioned in an earlier post. From that information, I cut and pasted a handout that summarized the important parts of Anki..

In three classes today, I gave the students the handout and asked them to quietly read it. Then I tried to explain why I am trying to teach them how to use Anki, not only for my class, but so they can use it in other classes. Finally, I had them do their partner Anki study activity. I can only hope that they did it with a better understanding and perhaps appreciation of the process.

Next year, I will definitely have to do this at the beginning of the semester!

Anki fail

Last semester, full of enthusiasm for Anki, I tried to use it with a high level, second year group - a content based International Relations class that met once a week. As there was a lot of vocabulary to be learned related to issues such as refugees, climate change, gender issues, etc., Anki seemed a good way to teach the vocabulary needed in class discussions and activities.

So, similar to some other projects at the time, I created a class account and individual decks for all the students with the first unit's vocabulary. All the students were shown how to access the Anki website and use the program to study. There you go, kids; good luck!

Well, I'm sure you can guess that it didn't work out very well. Some students reported technological problems. Some said it didn't match their learning styles and that they preferred a traditional list on paper. Some, well, I just don't know why they didn't use Anki.

However, in hindsight, I can think of a major reason why it did not work. The bi-weekly vocabulary quizzes only tested the vocabulary for the new unit. Once the quiz was over, there was no pressure on the students to study/remember the old vocabulary. Anki is for long term retention of information and is not particularly well suited for cramming the night before.

Once the students stopped, understandably, reviewing the cards after the quiz, the system broke down. Then later, when I added a new unit's worth of cards to their decks, they couldn't get to them because of all the old reviews in the way. of course they didn't like Anki.

The main lesson for the teacher here is that the content of the Anki deck has to be needed by the student throughout the time frame of the class. There has to be some kind of pressure to keep the students reviewing the material as the class progresses.

If I were to do it again, and I probably will for next year's class, I will have weekly quizzes that cover all the vocabulary from past lessons. Hopefully, this will create that pressure to continue using Anki. However, I will need to figure how to structure the quiz as the amount vocabulary begins to increase. I don't want to spend too much time in class giving the quiz.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

When the student becomes the teacher...

In class the other day, my students were doing pair work with the smart phones, ten minutes each of quizzing each other on their decks. As there was an odd number of students, I partnered up with a student who is usually too cool for school.

Using his iPhone to access his Anki account, I quizzed him on his cards, taking the opportunity to ask him how he would assess his own performance and discussing with him what rating he should give. It was the kind of thing supervised/modeled Anki use I would love to do with all my students, but there is just not enough time...

However, the really cool part was when I handed him my iPod Touch and had him open up my current Rosetta Stone Japanese deck. With encouragement, he started quizzing me and helping me with my Japanese pronunciation. Soon, he was totally into it, dramatically making faces at my errors and congratulating me on my successes. Suddenly, the student was the teacher, fully engaged and concentrating hard on the task at hand. It was awesome to see. Somehow, the cool kid had become a language geek like me!

What are you doing wtih Anki?

I'd like to create a post where people can share their experiences with teaching with Anki. Please feel free to write as much as you like!

As of now, I'm primarily having my students use the Anki website on their smart phones in class. They work in pairs, with one student quizzing the other student on his or her deck. That way, they are all involved, nobody can check out of the activity, and not everybody has to have a smart phone to participate.

In one class, we use a computer lab once a week where the students do data entry of materials into their online decks. In some other classes, the students make their cards out of class on their own time.

So far, my main issue is making sure the students get enough hands on time with Anki so they learn how it works and become comfortable with it. However, I have to balance the amount of class time I can commit to that compared to other things...

I plan on surveying my students about the experience and usage. I also hope to get voluntary access to their accounts so I can compare reported perceptions and usage to actual usage.

So, what are you doing with Anki? Please share...

My current method of study

In the interest of sharing successes and failures with learning another language, I thought I'd share something I wrote a few years ago about Rosetta Stone (RS). We were using RS quite happily and successfully, so I decided to do some google searching to see what other people were saying about it. Surprisingly, it was almost all critical and dismissive. After reading many blog posts and comments ripping RS to shreds and me saying, "No! You don't understand RS or know what you are talking about..." I decided to write a little piece about RS.

Personally, I think it is good system, especially when paired with Anki. The available PDFs make for excellent Anki cards and just burn the content into your brain. Each lesson has about 120-150 cards, so when you make a reverse deck of same cards, you end up with hundreds of full, grammatically correct sentences based around a common theme/topic. My level 1 and level 2 decks have about 3000 cards each.

************************************************************************************

"While I understand many of the complaints and problems with RS, I think the overwhelming negativity and dismissal of the program is unfortunate, much of it based on misunderstandings of what RS is trying to do and fundamental concepts of language acquisition. This is a shame as it may scare some away from objectively assessing its effectiveness and perhaps finding the method that works for their personal style of learning.

I have been teaching a second/foreign language (English) in different countries for over 15 years, and in the last 30 years, I have seriously attempted to study at least seven languages. I have used books, private tutors, classes, audio cassettes, CDs, and numerous computer programs. I only say this to show that I have some experience in regards to second language acquisition. Also, I do not work for RS.

In my current attempt to learn Japanese in the last year, I have used RS, the Genki textbooks, Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji, Anki, Japanesepod101, and Human Japanese, as well as a class and a tutor here in Tokyo.

The two most important things in learning a language are TIME and MOTIVATION. You have to be willing and able to give a large amount of time to the process. There is NO WAY around this. So, anything method that makes you willing and able to give that time is fantastic and should be embraced.

My wife and I both find RS to be challenging, rewarding, and addictive to use. We give a lot of our time to RS. In that case, the cost is insignificant. Time is our most valuable and limited resource. If a method can get you to commit that resource, then it is priceless.

I have been reading a great deal about RS, and it seems that the majority of complaints come down to the following list. I will try to respond to each one.

COST – Yes, it is expensive compared to other options. However, if it leads you to your goal, what is that worth? Also, if you look at the amount of photos, audio files, design, etc., you realize this is not a cheaply made program. And yes, it is a very successful business that is very good at marketing itself. However, don’t dismiss a true evaluation of RS’s effectiveness just because of sticker shock. (Update - a friend recently paid about $1,000 for a ten-week, twice-a-week, two-hour per session class here in Tokyo. He also spends two hours every time on round trip travel, plus about $15 on transportation. How's that for sticker/time shock?)

LACK OF GRAMMAR/EXPLANATION – I, too, have been frustrated at times when I don’t understand a word or phrase. Yet, this happens in any language learning process. Many people become fluent without ever consulting a grammar book. RS is not designed to teach you grammar; it is designed to teach you the language. Also, it has to be accessible to speakers of any language. How could RS provide grammar/explanations in all languages? As a side note, there is research that indicates that studying grammar is NOT an effective way to learn a language.

EASY TO GUESS THE ANSWER – If you view RS – or any other language learning – as a race to get through or a system that you can ‘cheat’ your way through, then you are not serious about learning the language. RS will not teach you the language; you must teach yourself using RS. You need to study as a mature student, taking full responsibility for your successes and failures. Take notes. Be honest with yourself about whether or not you understand a concept before moving on.

DOESN’T TEACH SURVIVAL/TRAVEL PHRASES – Correct. RS is not designed for the traveler. It is designed to teach anyone the language, starting from the bottom up. It doesn’t care if you want to know how to say ‘Where is the bathroom?’ However, the fact that RS markets itself in that way is a legitimate complaint.

Now, for the good things about RS. I know these may not be true for everyone, but they are important for potential learners to know:

FUN AND ADDICTIVE – Need I say more? If it gets you to actually put in the time, then it’s a winner.

MATERIAL BROKEN INTO CONCISE AND OBTAINABLE BENCHMARKS/GOALS– The material is presented in a way that makes it easy to commit to and finish a section. Unlike more open ended studying, RS ‘enforces’ the process, creating learning opportunities with clear goals.

ALL IN TARGET LANGUAGE – Nothing but you and the language you are trying to learn. Yep, it’s hard. There’s no faking it. You either figure it out or you don’t. Suck it up, Buttercup!

FOCUSES ON LISTENING – Listening is the most difficult of the four skills. You will hear thousands of target language phrases in a focused listening context. (Update - there are also audio files available, which means you can surround yourself with the same content but in a different way.)

REPETITION ENFORCED BY THE PROGRAM – Yes, it can seem tedious at points, but you have to practice, practice, practice. If you follow RS’s lead, there’s no escaping it as much as you would like to move on. You can’t just say, ‘Oh I know that,’ and rush ahead to the next section.

Again, this is just my opinion, and I know that there are many different learning styles and opinions out. I just wanted to put in my two cents (sorry, it might be three because I wrote so much ;)

Cheers,

Rich

How to cheat at Anki - and how to stop it...

Thanks again to Soren for a great article on how students might cheat t0 get around required Anki use of out class. He also discusses how a teacher might best deal with the problem:

http://thetechnicalgeekery.com/anki/cheating-in-anki.pdf

Sweet success!

I was checking the status of classes' Anki decks today while they were studying in pairs with smart phones. At this point, they should have about 260 cards generated from EFL Press's Topic Talk, an excellent book that works perfectly with Anki. The majority of students have most of the cards or are working on keeping up. Some are complete slackers. What can you do?

However, today, I noticed that one student, who only has about 5o cards in her deck for my class, also had second deck in her account.

"What's this?" I asked her. "Oh, chigau kurasu," she replied. A different class. Intrigued, I had her click over to the other deck. It was for a business hospitality class and consisted mostly of airport abbreviation codes.

"Did you make this deck?" I asked. She nodded her head, looking sheepish. "Why?" I continued.

She replied, haltingly, "Anki is good. It helps me study."

I swear I almost hugged her. I've been riding that buzz all day. Call me a geek, but that is a huge success in my book and fills me with hope!

Anki information in Japanese

If you are using Anki with Japanese students, you might want to share this website with them:

http://wikiwiki.jp/rage2050/?FrontPage

Specifically, the following link is a manual for Anki Japanese:

http://wikiwiki.jp/rage2050/?FrontPage