[erispoe]

> an "adaptive" learning system doesn't just adapt to the spacing effect, but to your study habits, emotional state, learning style, and even the global activity linked to certain concepts

That's interesting, how do you assess the marginal benefit of extra adaptation beyond the spacing effect? My understanding is that the spacing big is pretty big to begin with, compared to a blunt read and re-read approach. How better can it be with personal adaptation? Do you improve memorization time by 10%, 100%, more?

[yermierc]

I can't answer with an exact number until we can do sufficient prospective studies, but I can share some data: We have done some studies where two students were already using Anki and were failing or in the danger zone of failing. After being introduced to Memorang for 6-8 weeks, they all increased their scores by a national standard deviation and had a 100% passing rate.

What does this mean? The students said that Anki didn't motivate them, and that study fatigue (Not the spacing effect) was the key differentiator. As a medical student I am very familiar with this, and so one of our main goals with Memorang is to keep people engaged in vivo, not just have an optimal algorithm should you religiously follow it to a T.

[tangled_zans]

That's a very interesting point.

I love the stellar memory that Anki gives me but it's BORING. So so so BORING. It's the primary reason why I don't use it more often. I've been thinking about an alternative for some time, so it's nice to see that someone else is working on it.

I'm not actually too sure of what you're doing that's different though, and the slides you provided have been a bit vague.

Can you elaborate more on what exactly memorang does that keeps people "engaged in vivo"?

And how exactly does it "adapt to [..] study habits, emotional state, learning style, and even the global activity linked to certain concepts"?

[yermierc]

>Can you elaborate more on what exactly memorang does that keeps people "engaged in vivo"

Between algorithm choices, learning modes, and other customization options there are dozens of ways you can learn the same material instead of simply flashcards like Anki.

For the other components, some of these are works in progress and others are already present. I would encourage you to learn a subject towards 100% and you'll see exactly what we mean. Part of the answer is gamification via scores and leaderboards, some is advanced study stats where you can compare your progress, gain insights into how you learn, and see how you stack against the global average. Another part of the answer is targeted feedback via the "tutor" which will introduce study tips and humor depending on your progress.

We also are launching a 2.0 version very early next year which will be a fruitful step in the right direction.

Overall, we have a pretty broad vision for what we think we can accomplish and are actively working towards getting there from a tech point of view (development) and via academic research with well known universities. The ultimate goal would be that you could just sit down, select what you need to know, and then be perfectly guided towards subject mastery in whatever way is most optimized for you as an individual.

[tangled_zans]

Sorry, but while the product may or may not be good, every sentence that I read from you sounds like OMG HYPE.

"The ultimate goal would be to be perfectly guided to mastery"...? Yeah, and the ultimate goal of every NLP startup is to have 100% natural language understanding by the machine... but that doesn't mean that any of them can promise that in the foreseeable future, or that I won't laugh at them if they do.

"I would encourage you to learn a subject towards 100% and you'll see exactly what we mean."

That... is already what I do with Anki, or at least as reasonably close to 100% as possible under reasonable time constraints. It's patronising of you to assume that I don't, or to claim that your product is the only way to reach that.

Good luck with your startup.

[sheepmullet]

> It's patronising of you to assume that I don't, or to claim that your product is the only way to reach that.

I'm pretty sure he is saying "use our product to learn a single subject to 100% and you will see what I mean".

Often it is hard to explain the benefits of a platform with a few quick comments on hn.

[tangled_zans]

Yeah, I was a bit too negative with my feedback, on second reading you are right.

[yermierc]

I see that you're angry, but I think it's because you misread my comment.

When I wrote "I encourage you to learn a subject towards 100% mastery and you'll see exactly what we mean" it was purely meant to encourage you to learn a small subject on Memorang to help answer your questions about the methods you inquired regarding interacting with the learning system. It wasn't, as you seem to believe, a statement that you couldn't learn via alternative methodologies.

[tangled_zans]

You're right, I'm sorry to have assumed the worst! Looking back I definitely came across rather negative.

I will give it a go, the screenshots look quite nice.

[michaelcampbell]

Could it have been that your students were just bored with what they had been using? (i.e., not "anki" vs. "memorang", but "something I've used" vs "something new" effect?)

[yermierc]

It's an interesting thought! Boredom can definitely lead to study fatigue, but the people in this example were medical students preparing for a high-stakes board exam at a top-10 institution. Boredom might be less of an issue at this level - it's more about efficiency and a tremendous feeling of stress and pressure. Indeed, several of these students who were in danger of failing were studying as much as 10-12 hours per day... essentially spinning their wheels in the mud.

That being said, combatting boredom is a really important thing to consider.

[jeffshek]

I've played a little with Memorang after reading this yesterday, but I'm struggling to understand what the difference in studying was before and after of Anki.

What was the reason Memorang changed for the students that Anki didn't provide? Better default flash cards? Gamification? Or multi-factors?

I've been using Anki for about a year, and I've read a lot about Anki burnout (missing a few days means I'm going to dedicate 2-3 hours on the weekend to catch up). I don't procrastinate this as much so this becomes less of a fear.

[yermierc]

Thank you for the questions. I think it's likely multi-factorial and to be honest there are many features we haven't yet built that Anki has and are in our backlog... there's still much work to be done. It's likely some combination of expert content, multiple learning modes, gamification, friendly UI, and collaborative features. Give or take the importance of one or the other depending on the person. Some struggle with time management, others study fatigue, and others just don't like or trust user-generated content. For my own studying, I'm not a big fan of pure flashcards and prefer other methods of active recall.