

Ask HN: Flash Card App Idea... - QuantumGuy

So recently I started college and began to memorize various mathematics and equations. Problem is my memory is horrible and just reading doesn't work for me so I turned to my Android and found a flash card app. Ankidroid and G+Flashcards left me off worse then when I started. There is no organization for the cards,no way to get a hold of the set of card creator, or a decent description of the card set I am downloading. So with that being said I plan on developing my own flash card app but I need input and was hoping to get some ideas of what I should make my app like from the people of hacker news, thanks in advance for any answers.
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tom_b
I do like Anki and am currently using it for a couple of different learning
activities.

I would suggest you create your own decks with images you find or create
yourself rather than downloading existing decks. Memorization is generally
improved by this approach (see Higbee, Your Memory : How It Works and How to
Improve It).

I also like how Anki has spaced repetition built in nicely.

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stfu
I am also a frequent user of Anki. The only problem I see is that its
preferences (intervals, set length, etc) are at the first glance not that easy
to figure out. Besides simplifying it a bit more, I see very little options to
improve the standard Flashcard system.

Plus what makes Anki awesome is the ability to use the cards on every OS,
making it a ideal collaborative tool. But as mentioned by tom_b you need to
create your own decks. There is very little use for most public decks unless
you have the extreme lucky moment having to learn exactly the same as the
author of the deck did.

In fact this might be a more interesting place for innovation - the management
of Anki cards. Not sure how the market situation looks but you could be
offering cards for popular textbooks or create a marketplace for these in
order to rise the quality. Not sure how the copyright situation looks like,
but you could be entering also a more mainstream market - for example by
offering a card deck for each issue of Mental Floss in order to learn at least
a few interesting things each month.

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dgunn
I know you're looking for advice on your app idea but I just want to throw
this in. I'm concerned that you're memorizing math. In my experience flash
cards only reduce your ability to learn (and apply) math. You need to
understand the reasons behind the operations you're performing and understand
why they applied for a particular problem. This builds intuition which is much
more long-term than memorization. Memorizing equations for an exam helps you
for that exam only (typically). Being able to quickly derive the equation any
time you need will help you forever. This is harder but only at first. You'll
thank yourself.

As for the app, go for it! Just don't use it for math and preferably don't
pitch it as a aid for math students. You'll only be hurting them.

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QuantumGuy
Thank you very much for the advice...

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Danny830x
I made something like this for my girlfriend. She uses it for school. It's not
very polished, but it may work for your needs or give you some ideas.

notecard.herokuapp.com

You can create an account (no email verification necessary). Your first step
is to create a semester, then a section, then you create notecards. The
notecards flip front to back with a single click. You can also put your
notecards in a "Known" or "Unknown" pile so you know what you have to study.

edit: The notecards also support HTML

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QuantumGuy
Thank you very much =D and does it support HTML5?

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xauronx
My first impressions:

Provide people a way of creating the flash cards online. Let them use a simple
editor or type html directly. Make sure they can do it quickly.

Have the app connect to your web service and pull down the card groups and
cards. Of course, they should be able to edit the cards on the device as well.

Swipe left/right to cycle through full screen cards, tap to flip them over.

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QuantumGuy
Can you please elaborate?

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lewispollard
Take a look at memrise, they combined flashcard theory with gamification.

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dahotre
Look at Evernote's Peek. It's not exactly flash cards but could well be used
for it.

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QuantumGuy
Explain to me how this is any better than ankidroid if you don't mind...

