Just wondering if anyone has tried combining Anki with handwriting for improved retention? (any personal experiments?)
In language learning, memorizing words in a shallow way tends to not be as helpful as memorizing them in a sentence (shallow vs deep encoding). One can try to ankify sentences, but it's too easy to click on the green button and fool oneself that one has mastered the sentence. Anki works great for snippets of atomic knowledge but doesn't work as well for sequential/series knowledge like sentences.
On the other hand, there's another method called the Gold List method which is a pen-and-paper based SRS system which requires writing out complete sentences and testing recall every 2 weeks or so. Pen-and-paper folks like it, but due to the limitations of paper, implementing a proper SRS is far too tedious.
What if one were to use Anki for the SRS part, and handwrite the responses? Handwriting sounds tedious, but I wonder if it helps deepen the encoding? (by forcing reconstruction of the sentence, slowing one down enough to dwell on the form and grammar, as well as adding a physical element to the task)
The point of writing atomic flashcards is to prevent the loss of resolution reviewing questions about wholes (sentences in your case). Mind that atomic does not mean that it has to be about details, I usually create flashcards for each abstraction, that is, besides asking for details, I also write a question for the full sentence.
This is one way to prevent the loss of resolution, but sometimes it is time consuming to write all those flashcards (think about a long proof).
Another way to do it, is to write down the answer pen-and-paper, that way you are forced to focus on the details, not just the big picture: no loss of resolution.
I do this for learning Chinese characters. And if for some reason I'm feeling too lazy to physically pick up a pen/pencil, or want to test my IME skills, I can alternatively use the input box that I included on the cards.
I do, but not for language learning, but for mathematical proofs and logic proofs. Example "Prove that the dot product between 2 unit vectors is cos θ".
For me, this may be too big a card, for what it's worth (depending on how you define the dot product). If it's defined as "|a| |b| cos theta", then fine, but if it's defined as "sum(a_i b_i)", there's definite work involved for me.
In language learning, memorizing words in a shallow way tends to not be as helpful as memorizing them in a sentence (shallow vs deep encoding). One can try to ankify sentences, but it's too easy to click on the green button and fool oneself that one has mastered the sentence. Anki works great for snippets of atomic knowledge but doesn't work as well for sequential/series knowledge like sentences.
On the other hand, there's another method called the Gold List method which is a pen-and-paper based SRS system which requires writing out complete sentences and testing recall every 2 weeks or so. Pen-and-paper folks like it, but due to the limitations of paper, implementing a proper SRS is far too tedious.
What if one were to use Anki for the SRS part, and handwrite the responses? Handwriting sounds tedious, but I wonder if it helps deepen the encoding? (by forcing reconstruction of the sentence, slowing one down enough to dwell on the form and grammar, as well as adding a physical element to the task)