What are you using Supermemo for?

[Bee]

Good idea. I like the new, helpful you...

 

[rajlego]

I used anki before using Supermemo but I completely forgot I'd tried it till a while after using Supermemo. I can remember now that I did use it but I can't remember how I came to use it. I did find anki kind of limiting in that it was hard to manage cards, the knowledge tree is pretty neccessary.

This weekend, I am kickstarting my Anki use. It seems I will have to make my own deck for BSL, but making the deck is the first step in rooting it into my memory.

Send chocolate.

What's BSL?

 

[Jon]

Yeah, I've always thought the Knowledge Tree was a killer feature. I found the whole Anki structure thing a bit confusing, to be honest.

 

[Bee]

BSL is British Sign Language - I have a number of friends who are Deaf and so I am learning their language because it's much easier and less exhausting for me to sign than for them to have to lip read.

 

[rajlego]

BSL is British Sign Language - I have a number of friends who are Deaf and so I am learning their language because it's much easier and less exhausting for me to sign than for them to have to lip read.

Ah, I see. Maybe this blog will be of use to you, it's about using spaced repetition for procedural skills which the author defines as such:

Knowledge that can only be tested through performance is procedural .
I haven't gone very far through the blog's posts but the main takeaway is that you should always physically perform skills when the card comes up, not just rehearse them in your mind. With the example of keyboard shortcuts given in this post, I think it makes a lot of sense. After I started to put my fingers on the keys when a card asked about a keyboard shortcut (instead of remembering it in my head), I got better at being able to go ahead and just use the shortcuts.

 

[Jon]

When I am learning to code using Supermemo, if it asks a question such as "How to list contents of a directory?", I then open Notepad in Windows and type out the answer: ls (for Mac) or dir (for Windows). This gets me physically doing it and so is a procedural method.

 

[rajlego]

I think for anything involving typing you can't just think it out because the muscle memory you build from doing it physically is really valuable

 

[Bee]

Thanks, Raj for the blog link. Jon has put me off SM because he thinks my puny female brain can't handle it. Actually, that's not true - but I have found Anki to be sufficient for what I need. I'm interested in the concept of procedural knowledge/learning though and can easily see how that applies to learning sign language.