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Grazer Linuxtage 2018

Playlist "Don't forget to remember"

Don't forget to remember

Lukas Prokop

Anki is a popular memorization software for students. Especially medicine and language students use it frequently for long-term memorization. Given a set of vocabulary, how can you remember it with little effort and long-term? Anki is the most popular representative of SRS (Spaced Repetition Software). This underlying algorithm determines when the next review should take place. Psychological studies show that this method works well.

In 2017, I had to study Japanese vocabulary and Kanji in a quite limited amount of time. In this situation, I began to discover memorization software and improved my studying skills. Anki is the most popular SRS representative (Spaced Repetition Software) and some free software under the GNU AGPL v3 (Desktop and Android client).

Spaced Repetition is a learning technique similar to the Leitner system. Digital flashcards have two sides: a question and an answer. In a review, the user answers one question after another. In case of Anki, you tap how good you remembered the answer. The SRS algorithm schedules the next review based on your previous rating. In case of a good score, the gaps between reviews increase exponentially.

In this talk, I will present my usecase, the interface and its associated projects.