inZania

At long last, StudyArcade 0.1.4 is in the AppStore. Hopefully future delays will be avoided.

Version 0.1.5 is almost ready to go - it mostly includes a lot of bug fixes thanks to crash reports submitted through the AppStore. Hopefully this should fix the remaining outstanding crashing issues which occasionally occur in the Discover section or when editing lots of facts in the Knowledge section, as well as a few other misc. bugs.

Some of you may already be familiar with this, but if you are learning a foreign language, the US Foreign Services Institute created a great set of materials where are available for free online. For a large number of languages, there are both PDFs and MP3 audio tapes you can listen to. The resources are very effective and thorough, as they are used to prepare government workers for their time abroad. Here’s the link.

Enjoy!

It’s almost funny, but it is also quite frustrating. Here’s the actual message I received from Apple today:

Your application, StudyArcade and StudyArcade Pro, cannot be posted to the iTunes App Store because of “Pod” usage in your product name. We want to remind you of the importance of following Apple’s posted Guidelines for Using Apple’s Trademarks and Copyrights.

The tester then included a screenshot of the “Services” section of the “Help” section of the application, pointing to ChinesePod, SpanishPod, etc.

*sigh*

I’m currently performing stress-tests on StudyArcade 0.1.4. The major improvement in this version is one which I’m sure students of foreign languages will appreciate. Previously (through version 0.1.3), if you used StudyArcade in “Bidirectional” or “Reverse” mode, the progress for the reversed cards would be combined with the progress from the normal cards. Basically, StudyArcade did not care if you were studying “forward” or “backward” (or, in another way of thinking of it, “to” or “from” your native language) - the progress for both was recorded together. In version 0.1.4, the progress for reversed attempts is recorded separately.

This is useful because maybe can read the word 你好 (Chinese for “hello”), but when I think of the English word “hello” I cannot actually remember how to say it in Chinese.

Here is the full change list as of right now:

• StudyArcade now records “normal” and “reverse” study progress independently. Which is to say: your ability to remember that “il gatto” means “cat” is entirely separate from your ability to remember that “cat” means “il gatto”. This is more similar to how Anki and other flashcard applications work
• All games can now be played using “Normal” “Bidirectional” and “Reverse” modes (not just Flashcards)
• Fixed a bug with SuperMemo-2 showing “0″ facts remaining for extended periods of time
• Fixed a bug with certain facts in SuperMemo-2 appearing excessively frequently
• Added more stats to the “SuperMemo-2 Spacing” graph in the profile section
• Generally decreased repetitiveness of facts appearing in SuperMemo-2

I plan to spend another 2-4 days testing this latest version before submitting to Apple and Cydia (at which time it will appear in Cydia within 24 hours and in the AppStore in about 7 days, as usual).

I just wrote a guest bit over on the techTravelr blog about wireless internet when roaming in other countries. Thought it might be of interest to some

A few weeks ago I mentioned Wolfram Alpha, a new search tool which looks to be the best natural language processing application we’ve seen to date. I highly suggest you watch the new screencast - it is simply stunning. I cannot even describe what I just saw.

StudyArcade 0.1.2 is now available in the AppStore. As testers/Cydia users have noted, there are lots of speedups in this version. Please enjoy!

Concentration and attention are, as any student knows, two of the most important things when learning. This recent New York Times article discusses recent neuroscience research into concentration and how it can be improved. Some highlights:

We’re going to have cool new procedures and techniques to improve concentration soon
Blocking out excess sensory stimulation, such as wearing earplugs while studying, can make a big difference
Try studying for 90 minutes in the morning, then drink some caffeine and take a break before returning to do more studying/work

If you’re a reader of this blog, you know it is all about human learning… but rarely do we get to talk about the other side of the equation: computer learning. Natural language processing (making a computer that is able to understand human language) is one of the most complicated and anticipated problems in all of computer science. Yet, according to this article, it looks like Dr. Wolfram may have accomplished just this. Furthermore, the software is able to cross-check sources and thus provide accurate answers to questions asked using our normal vernacular.

Wolfram Alpha is set to launch this month.

All I can say is that I’m excited to see if it works half as well as it sounds like it will. If it does, this is the first major piece of the Artificial Intelligence puzzle to emerge in a long time.

Recently I mentioned that ChinesePod, FrenchPod, SpanishPod, and ItalianPod were four of my favorite web services for learning a language. They mesh incredibly well with a mobile lifestyle, and offer great resources to explore a language in multiple ways.

I kick off each day by finding two new lessons I want to learn and downloading the different MP3 files from the website. Then I add them to my iTunes library, and the smart playlists do the rest of the work of adding them into appropriate lists:

Then I spend 10-15 minutes listening to the lesson MP3 file, and then another 10 minutes reading the sentences in the “expansion” section. All the while, I click on every word I do not understand on the website - left clicking on a word automatically adds it to the “My Vocabulary” section. The entire process takes about 45 minutes to go through 2 lessons.

Finally, when I walk out the door, I press the “Synchronize Now” button within StudyArcade on my iPhone. As I walk to class, cool down at the gym, and generally throughout the day I am able to review all the words from the lessons I just learned. By the end of the day, when I listen to “the fix” or other supplementary items from the Praxis website, I’ve gone through at least 400 flashcards.

So, why do I do it this way? What makes it good?

• Most of my studying occurs on-the-go. I only spend the 45 minutes at the beginning of the day sitting down to explicitly study; the rest of the time I’m just walking around or doing other things I have to do anyway.
• I don’t sit and study grammar. This is actually a good thing: there is research to suggest that gaining a more “natural” feel for what “sounds right” in a language is much better than trying to memorize sentence patterns.
• Each time I learn a new word, I am seeing it in a number of contexts, hearing it spoken aloud, and subsequently reviewing it throughout the day. By the end of the day, I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of all the words for that day.
• The lessons are entertaining, and for the first time in my life I find myself actually looking forward to studying each day.

I personally study Chinese and Italian. On a daily basis, I add about 30-40 new words to my vocabulary.
In an upcoming post, I’ll talk more about how I keep myself motivated and use this information to make sure my studying is moving in the right direction (and not just mindlessly memorizing words).