5 ms·

> There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs I think this is a common misunderstanding. Half the benef

by kqr 1y ago

> There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs I think this is a common misunderstanding. Half the benefit of SRS comes from working out what the flashcards are. You have to circle around a concept, look for similarities, differences, examples, generalisations, properties, etc. Is it hard work? Yes. Does it help understanding? Massively. This is also a very difficult skill which, I believe, is why many people fail to appreciate SRS. They try, write bad flashcards, don't see results, and give up. EDIT: This also leads to another common misunderstanding, that SRS is only good for memorising facts. With proper elaboration (thanks child comment), it can be used to build understanding of complex subjects too.

indolering 1y ago
The technical term is "elaboration" and it is key to long term retention.
aaldrick 1y ago
Fair point, please see my comment in response to allenu, in this same thread, for a detailed view. I did not mean to glaze over this aspect, I am aware this is very important. I can not and do not use AI for automating flashcards for this reason alone. But, I think my point still stands, getting information from one disparate app into another adds a lot of friction (saving it somewhere, copy and pasting and yada yada) to something that (I believe) should be as easy as possible. We have 1 click instant payment, but I can't have 1 click get this into some sort of inbox in Anki ready to flashcard-ify? To be honest, I have a whole frustration with apps and windows that I'm still trying to word, but fundamentally all we are doing when we are "computing" is moving information around. I wish that information was a first class citizen at the OS level that could be leveraged by any app immediately. Utopian view but this stuff ain't gonna think about itself.
ants_everywhere 1y ago
That's usually done by writing and elaborating notes. I think it's not clear to most people how flash cards improve this. The original idea of flash cards is rote memorization of facts that need fast (automatic) retrieval.
paulluuk 1y ago
> They try, write bad flashcards, don't see results, and give up. But if that's the case, then wouldn't a program that takes a long text (like a book) and creates GOOD flashcards, be way superior over someone making their own bad flashcards?
- tdeck 1y ago
  The quality of a card isn't absolute, it's personalized to the learner. There are ways to make an almost universally bad card (e.g. putting way too much information or a misleading image), but a really "good" card comes from the learner engaging with the material first before making the card. The program doesn't know what's in the learner's head and what associations the learner will make. That's the benefit of making your own card.
- prolyxis 1y ago
  Or a person could have the program either critique their flashcards as they write them, or suggest new sorts of flashcards to create without doing the work for them by automatically generating them.
- gloomyday 1y ago
  I can see that helping a beginner to get a lay of the land, but I see that as no more than training wheels. I created bad flashcards for a long time. In the end, I just figured, constantly editing cards when I noticed issues was the best way to learn how to use flashcards properly.
- andy12_ 1y ago
  I have just tried this afternoon to create with Gemini 2.5 Pro Anki cards to study for my exams. I've been doing it raw: I just paste the whole material (like 100k worth of tokens) into aistudio and generate the flashcards in txt format. For now it's going great, and I think that the cards are good enough as they are (there might be a couple here and there that I would remove or edit, but they don't get in the way of learning).
  - j1elo 1y ago
mfranzs 1y ago
Agree - making cards yourself is like programming yourself for how you want to understand and remember an idea.
resonious 1y ago
You might be right. I remember when I used SRS seriously for language learning, I got far more out of the cards I created painstakingly than the pre-built ones that I pulled off the shelf. That is - I still remember most if not all of the custom cards verbatim.
NiloCK 1y ago
> Half the benefit of SRS comes from working out what the flashcards are. You have to circle around a concept, look for similarities, differences, examples, generalisations, properties, etc. This is at least half true, but among SRS folks it's overstated. The same argument stands for any creative endeavor. Debussy had a greater experience than I did with Claire de Lune, because he composed it. In turn, my experience of it is probably greater than the next persons' because I learned it. Bottom of the heap is the lowly listener - but I think everyone would agree that listening is a wonderful way to appreciate music and shouldn't be diminished. Same for literature, visual arts, etc etc. The still greater reason that create-your-own has historically dominated for SRS decks is the specific curation aspect. Anything curated by someone else suffers from mismatch with your own intentions and prior knowledge profile. (Plug time. Like most people, I am building my own grandiose SRS app. Some writing on it is here: http://patched.network http://patched.network )
- fivestones 1y ago
  This looks amazing. I love your description > …the FOSS lovechild of anki, duolingo, wikipedia, and MathAcadamy, with a more generalized surface area… I haven’t read much in your blog and the answers are probably there, but what’s the current state? It looks like you’ve done a lot of work on it. Is it in a usable state at this point?
  - NiloCK 1y ago
    Wow, thanks! The app's been 'in production' for myself and my daughters for years, but no public access or polished working demos yet. I hope to have exemplar static-site builds using very soon. I'm also working on these guys for my in-development early literacy course: https://patched-network.github.io/letterpeople/ https://patched-network.github.io/letterpeople/
mlyle 1y ago
Creating your own flashcards and choosing what to curate is a helpful part of the process. This doesn't mean that being able to snip something nicely into a flashcard is not beneficial.
collyw 1y ago
I grabbed a set of flashcard for Spanish verb conjugations. The guy had put in a lot of work to get them in the most frequent order, over 3000 lines of python. It been a massive help to me and I am not sure that writing the code to generate the list would really have helped my Spanish too much. https://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_ultimate_spanish_conjugation.php#gory-details https://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_ultimate_spanish_conjuga...
- desert_rue 1y ago
  I’m pretty sure the others are suggesting that you don’t generate the word list through coding but when you encounter words you don’t know. What helps us remember is context (“I saw that in the Doctor Who episode where the big bad is-“) where a word list doesn’t give that context. Yes, you can crank through and memorize things without context. It is more painful and less effective overall.
  - collyw 1y ago
    This is for conjugations, which follow a pattern, or rather a mix of patterns, not for vocabulary.
fastasucan 1y ago
>I think this is a common misunderstanding. Half the benefit of SRS comes from working out what the flashcards are. You have to circle around a concept, look for similarities, differences, examples, generalisations, properties, etc. Yes. I really get the urge to automate stuff, but imo half of the benefit is from doing the leg work.

by kqr 1y ago

indolering 1y ago

The technical term is "elaboration" and it is key to long term retention.

aaldrick 1y ago

Fair point, please see my comment in response to allenu, in this same thread, for a detailed view. I did not mean to glaze over this aspect, I am aware this is very important. I can not and do not use AI for automating flashcards for this reason alone. But, I think my point still stands, getting information from one disparate app into another adds a lot of friction (saving it somewhere, copy and pasting and yada yada) to something that (I believe) should be as easy as possible. We have 1 click instant payment, but I can't have 1 click get this into some sort of inbox in Anki ready to flashcard-ify? To be honest, I have a whole frustration with apps and windows that I'm still trying to word, but fundamentally all we are doing when we are "computing" is moving information around. I wish that information was a first class citizen at the OS level that could be leveraged by any app immediately. Utopian view but this stuff ain't gonna think about itself.

ants_everywhere 1y ago

That's usually done by writing and elaborating notes. I think it's not clear to most people how flash cards improve this. The original idea of flash cards is rote memorization of facts that need fast (automatic) retrieval.

paulluuk 1y ago

> They try, write bad flashcards, don't see results, and give up. But if that's the case, then wouldn't a program that takes a long text (like a book) and creates GOOD flashcards, be way superior over someone making their own bad flashcards?

tdeck 1y ago
The quality of a card isn't absolute, it's personalized to the learner. There are ways to make an almost universally bad card (e.g. putting way too much information or a misleading image), but a really "good" card comes from the learner engaging with the material first before making the card. The program doesn't know what's in the learner's head and what associations the learner will make. That's the benefit of making your own card.
prolyxis 1y ago
Or a person could have the program either critique their flashcards as they write them, or suggest new sorts of flashcards to create without doing the work for them by automatically generating them.
gloomyday 1y ago
I can see that helping a beginner to get a lay of the land, but I see that as no more than training wheels. I created bad flashcards for a long time. In the end, I just figured, constantly editing cards when I noticed issues was the best way to learn how to use flashcards properly.
andy12_ 1y ago
I have just tried this afternoon to create with Gemini 2.5 Pro Anki cards to study for my exams. I've been doing it raw: I just paste the whole material (like 100k worth of tokens) into aistudio and generate the flashcards in txt format. For now it's going great, and I think that the cards are good enough as they are (there might be a couple here and there that I would remove or edit, but they don't get in the way of learning).
- j1elo 1y ago

mfranzs 1y ago

Agree - making cards yourself is like programming yourself for how you want to understand and remember an idea.

resonious 1y ago

You might be right. I remember when I used SRS seriously for language learning, I got far more out of the cards I created painstakingly than the pre-built ones that I pulled off the shelf. That is - I still remember most if not all of the custom cards verbatim.

NiloCK 1y ago

> Half the benefit of SRS comes from working out what the flashcards are. You have to circle around a concept, look for similarities, differences, examples, generalisations, properties, etc. This is at least half true, but among SRS folks it's overstated. The same argument stands for any creative endeavor. Debussy had a greater experience than I did with Claire de Lune, because he composed it. In turn, my experience of it is probably greater than the next persons' because I learned it. Bottom of the heap is the lowly listener - but I think everyone would agree that listening is a wonderful way to appreciate music and shouldn't be diminished. Same for literature, visual arts, etc etc. The still greater reason that create-your-own has historically dominated for SRS decks is the specific curation aspect. Anything curated by someone else suffers from mismatch with your own intentions and prior knowledge profile. (Plug time. Like most people, I am building my own grandiose SRS app. Some writing on it is here: http://patched.network http://patched.network )

fivestones 1y ago
This looks amazing. I love your description > …the FOSS lovechild of anki, duolingo, wikipedia, and MathAcadamy, with a more generalized surface area… I haven’t read much in your blog and the answers are probably there, but what’s the current state? It looks like you’ve done a lot of work on it. Is it in a usable state at this point?
- NiloCK 1y ago
  Wow, thanks! The app's been 'in production' for myself and my daughters for years, but no public access or polished working demos yet. I hope to have exemplar static-site builds using very soon. I'm also working on these guys for my in-development early literacy course: https://patched-network.github.io/letterpeople/ https://patched-network.github.io/letterpeople/

mlyle 1y ago

Creating your own flashcards and choosing what to curate is a helpful part of the process. This doesn't mean that being able to snip something nicely into a flashcard is not beneficial.

collyw 1y ago

I grabbed a set of flashcard for Spanish verb conjugations. The guy had put in a lot of work to get them in the most frequent order, over 3000 lines of python. It been a massive help to me and I am not sure that writing the code to generate the list would really have helped my Spanish too much. https://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_ultimate_spanish_conjugation.php#gory-details https://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_ultimate_spanish_conjuga...

desert_rue 1y ago
I’m pretty sure the others are suggesting that you don’t generate the word list through coding but when you encounter words you don’t know. What helps us remember is context (“I saw that in the Doctor Who episode where the big bad is-“) where a word list doesn’t give that context. Yes, you can crank through and memorize things without context. It is more painful and less effective overall.
- collyw 1y ago
  This is for conjugations, which follow a pattern, or rather a mix of patterns, not for vocabulary.

fastasucan 1y ago

>I think this is a common misunderstanding. Half the benefit of SRS comes from working out what the flashcards are. You have to circle around a concept, look for similarities, differences, examples, generalisations, properties, etc. Yes. I really get the urge to automate stuff, but imo half of the benefit is from doing the leg work.