What does Rememberize do?
Rememberize is a flashcard learning system - but instead of just showing you the same cards over and over again, Rememberize tracks how well you are doing with each card, and will test you more frequently on cards you seem to have trouble with. How do we do this? With a method outlined by Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s.
The Leitner method
The Leitner method is a very popular, and effective, way of making flashcard learning more efficient. For a moment, imagine you have real flashcards written on paper, and a series of five boxes labelled 0 to 4. Your flashcards start in box 0 since they are currently unlearned. You test yourself on the first flashcard, and you get it right. This flashcard moves to box 1. You continue testing yourself for all of them, and get them all to box 1. Tomorrow you return and test yourself again. All the ones you get correct move to box 2, but any that you did not get correct move to box 0 again. The next day you return, but you don't need to test yourself on those cards in box 2, since you're pretty good at them. So you concentrate on box 0 - in a few days you'll do box 2 and see if you've remembered well. Any that you get right that time move to box 3, and you can wait even longer to test yourself on them, while those you get wrong will return to box 0 to be tested again soon. Make sense?
The beauty of Rememberize is that it performs all this scheduling for you.
A quick tour of Rememberize
My Sets
This is the center of your Rememberize world - from this screen you can control all your card sets. For each set you will see a set box, which provides relevant information about the set, and it's cards.
Set Name
Hopefully this is obvious, it's the name of the set of flashcards - note that you can click on this title to start learning the set
Tags
A set can be tagged to make searching and sorting simpler. Note how the set above is tagged with both broad subject areas (like 'geography'), and narrower subject areas (like 'australia'). When you have a lot of sets that you are learning, or wish to use other peoples sets, these tags will become invaluable. For instance, in your 'My Sets' page there is a 'Filter by Tag' panel on the right. If you have hundreds of sets, but would like to study one of your sets about Spanish vocabulary, you can narrow the display with a simple click on the desired tag.
Card Statistics
You will note three numbers seperated by slashes. The first indicates the number of unlearned cards in the set (grey), the second indicates expired cards (red), and the third indicates learned cards (green). When you start learning a set all your cards will be 'unlearned.' As you get them correct you'll notice the cards are transferred to the 'learned' column. After a while though, Rememberize will determine it is time to retest you on those cards, and they will be moved to the 'expired' column. If you answer a card incorrectly it is moved all the way back to 'unlearned.'
Learning Statistics
The learning statistics is a quick reference percentage of how many cards in that set remain unlearned. This is essentially a quicker to read summary of the more detailed card statistics and ahould allow you to easily determine which sets need more attention.
Set Commands
A series of links appears in the right of the set box - these are the set commands. The list of commands can vary in content depending on the nature of the set, but there are up to 8 different commands available:
- Discuss - This area allows Rememberize members to discuss the specific set. Whenever there are new discussions on the set this command will appear bold.
- Edit - If you are the author of a set this command will allow you to edit it's title and tags. If you are subscribing to the set, this command will allow you to change what your tags for this set.
- Cards - Use this command to maipulate the flashcards themselves - you can edit each cards content, delete them, or create new cards for the set. This command will only appear if you are the author of the set.
- View - Much like the cards command, but without the editting abilities, you will be able to peruse the entire set of cards on one page. This command will appear for subscribed sets
- Delete - Completely destroys a set. This command can be used by the set author only, and only then if no-one is currently subscribed to the set. NOTE: Sets are not recoverable once deleted.
- Remove - Removes a subscribed set from your learning sets. This will not destroy the entire set, but will destroy any of your learning statistics and progress. You may later re-subscribe to the set, if the author does not delete it in the interim.
- Learn - This will take you to the learning page where you will be tested on the set. Clicking on the set name will also take you to the learning page.
- Review - This will take you to the review page where you can examine each card as if you were learning, but outside of the control of the Rememberize learning schedule.
Learning
The learning screen can be accessed by clicking the 'learn' command of any of your sets. At the centre of the screen will appear the first flashcard in the series, like so:
It is at this point you need to mentally test yourself as to the other side of the flashcard. Once you have thought of the answer, you may click the 'show answer' link (or press the 'k' key on your keyboard). At this point you assess whether your answer was correct and click the 'yes' or 'no' link that has appeared. This will continue for all the cards in the set.
At the top of the learning screen is a small toolbar. It contains your learning status which will be updated as you go through your cards. It also has a 'learning options' link which expands the toolbar, providing options regarding the card display.
expands to
Create A New Set
Creating your own set requires you to firstly provide a set name, and at least one tag to identify it. When tagging a set it is best to use both broad and narrow subject areas. The example shown below indicates this.
Once you click the 'Create New Set' button you will prompted to create a series of cards. Each card consists of two sides of information, and you may type up to 500 characters of information on each side. Alternatively you can use one of the import options available at the right of the page. These will allow you to import pre-existing cards in a few easy steps.
Once you've completed creating your cards, you can click the 'Finished' button, and you're all ready to start learning your new set.
Discovering Sets
Maybe you don't have the expertise to create your own cards on a certain subject, or maybe you'd like to just broaden your horizons, or maybe your just stuck for things to learn. Either way, Rememberize has a handy feature that allows you to use other people's sets.
Whenever a new set is made, even by you, it becomes publicly available. Remember those ever-important tags? It is those that make set discovery possible.
When you click on the 'Discover' link in the top menu bar, you will be taken to a search page. You can either search for a tag you had in mind by typing it in the search box, or you can browse popular tags by clicking on the available list.
After a successful tag search you'll see a list of relevant set matches. If they don't seem to match what you're looking for, you'll find the 'Related Tags' box on the right of screen very useful. First you can click on any tag you see there to conduct a search on that tag. Or to narrow your search you can click on the '+' sign next to the tag. This will allow you to find sets with both tags present.
When you've found a set that seems like the one you want, just click on it, and in the following screen (providing your logged in), you'll be able to tag it with some tags of your own. There are also some tag hints provided, and you can click on them to add and remove tags quickly. When you finally click 'Add to My Sets', it'll be ready for you to start learning!