To Remember Everything You Learn, Surrender to This Algorithm (2008)
Few people have tried Anki (a free alternative to SuperMemo). Even fewer have tried its add-ons, which is where it truly shines! Vanilla Anki is mostly good for text flashcarding, with the phone app helpful for making use of those little bits of downtime throughout the day.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=c-4xOe79epU&amp;list=PL3MozITKTz5YFHDGB19ypxcYfJ1ITk_6o" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=c-4xOe79epU&amp;list=PL3MozITKTz...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=QzBoDe3PgAc&amp;list=PL3MozITKTz5Y9owI163AJMYqKwhFrTKcT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=QzBoDe3PgAc&amp;list=PL3MozITKTz...</a><p>Glutanimate has taken Anki to a whole new level. He created a painless UI for occluding any part of an image and making Anki flashcards out of it (Image Occlusion Enhanced). I used it to efficiently create and memorize thousands of anatomy flashcards. Ordered lists can be a real pain to memorize, but when not missing steps is crucial (as it is for medical OSCEs), Cloze Overlapper has worked very well.<p>Anki lets you share your decks with others, and medical students have collaboratively created very high quality study decks for studying for the various STEP exams.<p>To be honest, I was always a fairly mediocre student. Big-picture concepts and figuring things out on the fly, no prob. But I&#x27;ve always struggled to nail down bits of information long-term or learn sequential information, meaning calc and ochem required inordinate amounts of time. No longer the case. Spaced repetition plus visual&#x2F;text&#x2F;auditory learning is a recipe for success.<p>The possibilities here should not be underestimated. Folks on Hacker News have talked about the value of information commons, and this right here is the next best example behind Wikipedia I have ever encountered. While quality collaborative decks exist for things like medical school, learning languages, and more, none exist specifically for the program I am in (PA school). I am currently creating my own with the goal of it being the core of a quality collaborative deck. I am using Gephi to spatially organize concept maps for diagnoses complete with incidence and strength of associations, when such information is available. I then export these maps to Anki, use Visual Occlusion Enhanced to block out the information I want to recall, and voila: time-efficient first-time learning and long-term retention.