The Rememberize Blog

You weren’t all supposed to get them yet, but while I was uploading a few bug fixes, I also uploaded a small update to the ‘My Sets’ screen. You’ll now have another small box above the Tag Filter box - an Order By box. This will allow you to float to the top of your Set list those sets that require your attention to learn, or that you have been learning most recently. Hopefully those of you with an ever-enlarging set list will find this useful.

The much lauded (at least in my mind) performance upgrades have been slightly marred by a code change that, well, made the ‘learn’ page go pear-shaped for large sets. I’m working on this and will have an update soon.

Thanks for your patience!

The feature rollout that was to occur a few days ago didn’t actually happen. There were some issues with it, so we reverted to the previous Rememberize that you’re all familiar with. With a bit more time on my hands today though, I beat out the problems, and there are some shiny new features you can now enjoy.

Set Reviews
This has been an oft demanded feature. Sure, the Leitner schedule Rememberize employs is great for optimising the learning process. But what if you want to just immerse yourself in a set, relearning the cards continually. Now, that is possible with the new ‘review’ set command. You will be presented with a page very similar to the learn page, but the review acts completely outside of the Rememberize scheduling system.

Card Styling
Very simple card styling is now available using a subset of Textile markup. A handy formatting toolbar makes this simple.

GIANT Set Capabilities
There have been a few recent sets created with quite a large number of cards present (almost 4000 cards in one instance). These gave quite some trouble to some subscribed users who reported that Rememberize was having, well, minor conniptions. Some extensive modifications have been made to the Rememberize architecture to cope with sets of this size.

If you are still having any performance issues with these large sets please let me know.

The Small Things
There have been some other minor tweaks that will hopefully make life more enjoyable. For instance, the search page now gives a card count for each set so that you don’t waste time examining empty sets.

Quite a bit of work has gone in to these enhancements, and they really do make for a better Rememberize. Enjoy!

I’m rolling out a few new features tonight, so things might get a bit iffy for a few hours. Let me know if you are having any problems with the site, and I’ll fill you in on the extent of the new features tomorrow.

Cheers!

Over the last week or two Rememberize has seen a lot of press. Most of it has been vastly positive, with a little bit of constructive criticism thrown in – we’ve taken that on board, and already started making some changes. Anyway, many thanks to those who took the time to post Remeberize to their blogs and site showcases, starting with the listing that got it all rolling, Emily Chang’s eHub.

eHub
Frost Fire Buzz
web2null
Simple Spark
Killer Startups (the link is now dead for some reason)

It’s often those small things that can be the most vital. Ever since the inception of Rememberize, for example, the small option to choose which side of a card to display while learning has been, at least for me, indispensable. When I wrote a brief spec outlining the requirements of Rememberize v1.0, that was in there. It was, for my use of flashcards, a necessity.

But, it’s often those small things that can be the most vital. You see, the feature was flawed. It didn’t persist – I could say one day that I would like random sides shown, but by the next day, Rememberize would’ve forgotten this desire. This is not good – it annoyed me, and therefore, probably you. And so, I fixed it.

The options drop down in the learning screen now has the ability to save your current settings. So if you like your cards on the metaphysical poets to display a random side, you can tell it to do that permanently, and if you’d like your cards on the top 10 largest deserts to always show the frontside of a card, you can tell it to do that. Permanently.

Above and beyond that, you now also have the ability to choose the font size and type for your sets. This will help when you are learning longer strings of text, and would like it to fit in the card without scrolling. Obviously, this too can be saved to be a permanent change.

I hope you like this change.

PS. I also changed some parts of Rememberize to take advantage of some caching technology. Hopefully this will increase responsiveness, and not produce any weirdness. But should weirdness occur, please report it to me – admin [ at ] rememberize [ dot ] com

A couple of new features have appeared in Rememberize.

CSV Import
For every set you can now choose to import cards from a CSV file instead of inputting them one by one. This should be handy for people who already use a Flashcard program. Just go to the ‘card’ screen for any set you own, and the import option appears on the right of screen.

Discussions
Users can now discuss sets they are learning about. There is an additional link that appears in each set box titled ‘discuss.’ This link will appear in bold type when a new comment has not been read by you.

Ads
Eek! Ads? Yes, ads. I’ve included some Google ads in the site in a hope that I may be, in some way, merrily reimbursed for the cost of hosting and domain registration. Of course, I don’t like ads when they get in the way of legitimate site functionality, so you will not find ads on every page, and every effort has been made not to hinder Rememberize’s usefulness in any way.

I look forward to any feedback you Rememberize users may have!

Well, I just enjoyed a hectic 6 week holiday, mostly in South Africa. I caught up with relatives, saw some beautiful scenery, and didn’t get shot at once! Now, it’s back to rememberizing…

Sorry, it’s been slow work (actually ‘no work’) on Rememberize over the last few months. My job, holidays, and general business has taken a toll on the time I could spend on Rememberize. It’s started up again, though slowly, and hopefully there’ll be some new things coming soon.

I just noticed one of the ZDNet blogs commenting on the use of computers in education. I gave it a quick read.

Rememberize is squarely aimed (currently, at least) at use #1 - Drills. I’m really glad that Mr Murphy thinks that computers can have a real benefit in the classroom. Unfortunately, ‘drill’ certainly doesn’t conjure up images of a pleasantly spent afternoon. Drills. That’s something Marines do. Or Football players. Not fourth graders.

Personally, I like learning when it’s hands on, when it’s intriguing, when it’s exciting. I’m sure most other people in the world would share similar sentiments. I’m more inclined to continue learning, to come back for more information, when it’s delivered in such a motivating way - I might not remember anything from “Zoology Zone - Raptors”, as Paul points out, but I’m sure gonna come back for “Zoology Zone - Cerapods.” But, honestly, I learnt my 12 times table by rote, and that’s certainly benefited me also (supplemented, of course, with an understanding of how multiplication works, so I can extrapolate the process to 13’s and 14’s if I need to).

My point is this - Rememberize sits in the zone of useful but, well, unromantic. Yes, it can really help you to learn Spanish nouns, and that could be invaluable on your trip to Baja California, but when your RSS feed notifies you that it’s time to relearn, what motivates you to go and do it? The notion of eventual reward, or that the reward is the knowledge itself? That seems a little weak to me - for most, something more immediate is needed. So I’m stretching every imaginative neuron in my brain to help people enjoy using Rememberize. It’ll take effort, but I’ll try.

In the meantime, listen to what Paul Murphy says! Computers (read: Rememberize), are great for learning by repetition!

PS. Paul, when referring to Zoology Zone, notes, “my guess is that if we had information about student comprehension and information retention on products like this one, those numbers would be functionally indistinguishable from zero because this kind of thing is, it seems to me, the teaching equivalent of the in flight movie.” I don’t know - I wouldn’t underestimate captivating an audience. In my mind engagement is an important part of comprehension - especially with kids. Granted, Paul did caveat the statement with “my guess,” but I would suggest that’s all it is, a guess. That said, so is this post-script!