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Show HN: Vocabulist – Automatically Fill Out Vocabulary Sheets

10 points by ahanmal 12y ago

bcjordan 12y ago
Very cool, I imagine this could streamline lots of teachers' workflows. Have you been in touch with teachers / thought about how to reach them with this?
- ahanmal 12y ago
  Thanks for the complement! I'm actually a HS student, so I have limited time to work on it and market it. I'm trying to get it into the hands of students and teachers. I've been working with the Director of Ed Tech at my school and sharing a lot on Twitter (Teachers Love Twitter), but only few have tried it out. If you have any ideas for marketing, please share!!
  - bcjordan 12y ago
    Check out the book Traction, it's got a nice framework for thinking about outreach channels. For a teacher focused product I suspect a big channel will be word of mouth.
kissickas 12y ago
Did HN bring it down already?
- ahanmal 12y ago
  Just scaled up some more Heroku instances. It should be good to go.
srtjstjsj 12y ago
It's a homework-cheating service? Are you undermining student's education just for fun, or for profit?
- ahanmal 12y ago
  Actually, as a High School Student, I feel that students waste a lot of time copying definitions from around the web. I would copy them into Quizlet, and then memorize them. Vocabulary is all about memorization, and unless you are hand typing from a paper dictionary, you are not really memorizing. I try to look at it like this: If you had 1 hour to prepare for your vocabulary quiz, would you rather spend 20 minutes copying and 40 minutes studying, or 5 minutes copying and 55 minutes studying.
  - prawn 12y ago
    The first suggestion you make on the front of your site is to print and give it to the teacher.
    - ahanmal 12y ago
      If the sheets are handed to a teacher, there is clear Vocabulist branding. The teacher should know that something's fishy. The main idea is for students to study. I'll probably change the front page text in the near future.
wodenokoto 12y ago
That is very cool. Can you talk a bit about which algorithms you use and what data you use?
- ahanmal 12y ago
  Thanks! There is really no algorithm, all I do is take individual words from a document or the inputed text, and call Merriam Webster's API with it. In the future, I plan on expanding to include foreign languages.
  - wodenokoto 12y ago
    Oh, I was too lazy to sign up for testing, so I thought it was a "fill in the blank" - that's how all the vocabulary exercises I get in school work.
idreyn 12y ago
This is neat! I wrote a script recently for extracting vocabulary from Chinese texts...kind of the same idea. Are you rate-limited by the Merriam Webster API at all?
- ahanmal 12y ago
  Thanks! No rate limiting - I've signed a contract with M-W allowing unlimited use for 1 year for $XXXX. You can check out the their API at http://dictionaryapi.com/ http://dictionaryapi.com/. I use https://github.com/gniquil/mw_dictionary_api https://github.com/gniquil/mw_dictionary_api to access their API, and haven't had many issues.

10 points by ahanmal 12y ago

Very cool, I imagine this could streamline lots of teachers' workflows. Have you been in touch with teachers / thought about how to reach them with this?

ahanmal 12y ago
Thanks for the complement! I'm actually a HS student, so I have limited time to work on it and market it. I'm trying to get it into the hands of students and teachers. I've been working with the Director of Ed Tech at my school and sharing a lot on Twitter (Teachers Love Twitter), but only few have tried it out. If you have any ideas for marketing, please share!!
- bcjordan 12y ago
  Check out the book Traction, it's got a nice framework for thinking about outreach channels. For a teacher focused product I suspect a big channel will be word of mouth.

kissickas 12y ago

Did HN bring it down already?

ahanmal 12y ago
Just scaled up some more Heroku instances. It should be good to go.

srtjstjsj 12y ago

It's a homework-cheating service? Are you undermining student's education just for fun, or for profit?

ahanmal 12y ago
Actually, as a High School Student, I feel that students waste a lot of time copying definitions from around the web. I would copy them into Quizlet, and then memorize them. Vocabulary is all about memorization, and unless you are hand typing from a paper dictionary, you are not really memorizing. I try to look at it like this: If you had 1 hour to prepare for your vocabulary quiz, would you rather spend 20 minutes copying and 40 minutes studying, or 5 minutes copying and 55 minutes studying.
- prawn 12y ago
  The first suggestion you make on the front of your site is to print and give it to the teacher.
  - ahanmal 12y ago
    If the sheets are handed to a teacher, there is clear Vocabulist branding. The teacher should know that something's fishy. The main idea is for students to study. I'll probably change the front page text in the near future.

wodenokoto 12y ago

That is very cool. Can you talk a bit about which algorithms you use and what data you use?

ahanmal 12y ago
Thanks! There is really no algorithm, all I do is take individual words from a document or the inputed text, and call Merriam Webster's API with it. In the future, I plan on expanding to include foreign languages.
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  Oh, I was too lazy to sign up for testing, so I thought it was a "fill in the blank" - that's how all the vocabulary exercises I get in school work.

idreyn 12y ago

This is neat! I wrote a script recently for extracting vocabulary from Chinese texts...kind of the same idea. Are you rate-limited by the Merriam Webster API at all?

ahanmal 12y ago
Thanks! No rate limiting - I've signed a contract with M-W allowing unlimited use for 1 year for $XXXX. You can check out the their API at http://dictionaryapi.com/ http://dictionaryapi.com/. I use https://github.com/gniquil/mw_dictionary_api https://github.com/gniquil/mw_dictionary_api to access their API, and haven't had many issues.