Month: April 2015

Flashcards Get Smarter

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Flashcards Get Smarter So You Can, Too
New digital versions make it easier to memorize material in spare minutes; learning Mandarin, first aid, art history
April 28, 2015
http://www.wsj.com/articles/flashcards-get-smarter-so-you-can-too-1430253560

The programs are based on research showing that spaced repetition, or repeated exposure to information at planned intervals, is the most powerful way to fix knowledge in one’s memory. Each digital flashcard is repeated at intervals, based on the degree of difficulty for the user. The hardest quiz items come up for review within a few hours or days, and easier ones are repeated every few weeks or months—when the user may be about to forget the answer.

http://ankisrs.net
Anki has been downloaded 2.5 million times since it was launched in 2006, including 850,000 installations in the past 12 months, says Damien Elmes of Sydney, Australia, the program’s creator.
Anki is free for computers and on the Web, or $24.99 for the iPhone and iPad mobile app
… Once she has information firmly in mind, she discards the card.

https://www.memrise.com
Cambridge University Press http://dictionary.cambridge.org
We are thrilled to be partnering with Memrise to help English learners everywhere.
http://www.memrise.com/course/48407/upper-intermediate-english
London-based Memrise uses spaced repetition along with frequent testing, competitions among users, and memory-boosting tricks, such as showing users how to link facts they’re trying to learn with memorable images or things they already know.
People use Memrise to improve their technical vocabulary in fields ranging from oil drilling to medicine, says Ed Cooke, chief executive officer of Memrise, whose memory skills and coaching were described in the book, “Moonwalking with Einstein.”
http://www.memrise.com/course/1169990/how-many-have-you-done

https://cerego.com
Cerego, San Francisco, a program designed for use both in classrooms and by consumers, tracks the user’s performance item by item, measuring how long each answer takes and analyzing patterns of correct and incorrect responses, says Andrew Smith Lewis, co-founder and executive chairman. The program selects the items the user most needs to review, creates lessons based on them and graphs the user’s progress in each course.
Researchers at Excelsior College are studying whether using Cerego can help students learn more in online math and biology classes, says Jason Bryer, a senior researcher at Excelsior College, Albany, N.Y. Preliminary results from a 2014 study of 1,000 students found those who used the program got better grades

The effectiveness of spaced-repetition programs has been documented in hundreds of studies dating back more than a century, says a 2012 study in Educational Psychology Review.
Researchers and students began using spaced repetition with paper flashcards as early as the 1970s, employing a method called the Leitner system.

a spaced-repetition program called Skritter
Nick Winter of San Francisco co-founded Skritter in 2009 because studying Chinese in college was so difficult. “You spend eight hours a day in the classroom trying to learn facts, and after the semester is over you forget 98% of it—and all those years of your life are gone,” he says.

Others use flashcard programs for self-improvement. Spencer Greenberg of New York, founder of ClearerThinking.org, a website offering tools to help people improve their decision-making, uses a spaced-repetition system he created to remember tips on interviewing software engineers and making successful presentations.

Mr. Winter, co-founder of CodeCombat, a videogame that teaches programming …

Flashcards Deluxe
By OrangeOrApple.com
http://orangeorapple.com/Flashcards
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flashcards-deluxe/id307840670
$ 3.99

Exam Vocabulary Builder by AccelaStudy®
By Renkara Media Group, Inc.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-exam-vocabulary-builder/id319052551
free

Microsoft Excel: Digital Flash Cards
Smoleny1
2013

MrExcel’s Learn Excel #570 – Random Quiz
Bill Jelen, 2009

Note/Index cards: MS Word template
2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqZgi6_EWlM
printable cards

Advertisement

Music for SCRATCH

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audionautix-logohttp://audionautix.com

Vento – Masked Heroes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLhfr8mpzxU

http://www.freesound.org [frequently used]
a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, … released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse.

recommended by Coursera Music Technology {Oct. 2016}
http://ccmixter.org
examples:

the music is from Keygenmusic.com

soundfx.co.uk
sounddogs.com

– http://www.wavsource.com

http://soundbible.com [frequently used]
http://download.cnet.com/KB-Piano/3000-2170_4-76278.html

The music is from THEPIANOGUYS2 – Mission Impossible
(please visit http://thepianoguys.com)

freesound.org

http://www.kayotix.com/music/childrens

http://www.stereoplayground.com
music and sound design

Sound effects: http://samples.mameworld.info

Agentroop > Eeping Pandas
https://soundcloud.com/fuzzyl0g1c
[used by: Sandbox https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/45413512
Pixel Town 2 https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23885773 ]
Glow by AgentRoop https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/67660036

fredmaster45 > Waves
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24953196
[used by: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/34478522 ]

http://www.pacdv.com/sounds
http://www.soundjay.com
recommended by Scratch Brasil

https://archive.org
eg.:
Boundary Dissolution by Idle Sunder
http://www.archive.org/details/ntt045

Super Hexagon https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/25754824 obtained sound from:
Math Fact Attack https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/12584720 obtained sound from:
http://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources

Apple’s Logic Pro
https://www.apple.com/logic-pro
used by http://spoonybrad.newgrounds.com
whose music was used by https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/54925440

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/26643202 uses newgrounds.com

[UPhone https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/25756166%5D
I used http://www.freesfx.co.uk for music tracks

Asteroids
by Silverdroid
https://soundcloud.com/silverdroidmusic/asteroids
http://silverdroid.bandcamp.com/releases

A beginner’s guide to Vector
May 18, 2015
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/62559814
{an exemplary instance}

Randoms Circles 100% PEN ✒
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73292208
instrumental music

A beginner’s guide to Vector
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/62559814
{evokes elegance, fantasy, magic, tiptoeing in ballet}

Nonstop
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/69878278
Clubstep level
electronic

Let’s Pick Raspberries!
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/72642422
{a simple repeating background sound}

In Summer AMV
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/71928740
Frozen

Saving Mars
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/71998314
Pixar for music (Inside Out theme song)
{action, speed, art}

3D Platformer Levels 1-4
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/74287684
made in FL Studio

How to: Sharpie Painting!
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73080238
Chandelier – By Sia – Music Box Tribute

http://digitalservices.npr.org/post/how-create-audio-social-media-video

Row over human embryo gene editing

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Row over human embryo gene editing
24 April 2015
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32446954

A controversial Chinese study that reveals genes in human embryos have been modified for the first time has sparked fierce debate.

The research looked at genetic editing techniques – which in theory can be used to snip out faulty bits of genetic material that would otherwise lead to serious inherited diseases.

This is the first time it is known to have been attempted on early human embryos. But the results suggest it can cause new, unintended genetic errors.

Experts are questioning whether the procedure – which, if taken further, could lead to genetic changes being passed on to future generations – has crossed ethical, moral and legal lines.

Deliberate Practice and Performance (2014)

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Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Education, and Professions
A Meta-Analysis
Psychological Science August 2014   vol. 25  no. 8  1608-1618
Brooke N. Macnamara
David Z. Hambrick
Frederick L. Oswald
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/8/1608

More than 20 years ago, researchers proposed that individual differences in performance in such domains as music, sports, and games largely reflect individual differences in amount of deliberate practice, which was defined as engagement in structured activities created specifically to improve performance in a domain. This view is a frequent topic of popular-science writing—but is it supported by empirical evidence?
To answer this question, we conducted a meta-analysis covering all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated.
We found that deliberate practice explained 26% of the variance in performance for games, 21% for music, 18% for sports, 4% for education, and less than 1% for professions. We conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued.

Keywords:

  • deliberate practice
  • talent development
  • meta-analysis
  • human performance
  • skill acquisition
  • expertise
  • open data

Can 10,000 hours of practice make you an expert?
1 March 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26384712