Anki flashcard generator

[AspenSong]

I've seen a few people here highly recommend using Anki flashcards for everything from science to foreign languages.  I have looked at the website and watched tutorials on You Tube, but I am still having difficulty seeing how making these flashcards is not an enormous amount of work.  

 

If anyone who uses them wishes to share insight into how time-consuming it is, I would sure love to hear about it!

Thank you!

[scoutingmom]

I've seen a few people here highly recommend using Anki flashcards for everything from science to foreign languages. I have looked at the website and watched tutorials on You Tube, but I am still having difficulty seeing how making these flashcards is not an enormous amount of work.

 

If anyone who uses them wishes to share insight into how time-consuming it is, I would sure love to hear about it!

Thank you!

The flashcards only take a moment to make each one... depending of course what you are putting on them. Basic text takes me less time per card on computer than it would to handwrite a flashcard on paper....

 

Of course if you are looking up pictures or recordings or something they take a lot longer.

 

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[Cosmos]

I don't find it time consuming at all. No matter how you're going to study the material, at some point you have to write or type out the words. I used to make word documents with lists of vocabulary but then switched over to anki. Typing them into anki takes the same amount of time or even less, because all I have to do it hit enter and the software automatically does all the rest of the work.

 

Now that my ds is older, he types in his own anki words. Just like writing out vocabulary words is good practice for learning them, I think that first step of typing the words into anki is actually *part* of the study process. So even if it took a long time, I wouldn't consider it wasted time. But it really doesn't take long.

[Miss Tick]

Like any other computer program it is a bit fiddly. I added 15 cards for Latin last week in less than 15 minutes. Then I copied them to the other two decks in our family in another 10 minutes.

 

We've been using Anki for a few months, and for the first time I've started to think that I want to investigate the fill-in-the-blank kind of card. So, like anything, it gets easier as you get more familiar.

[wendyroo]

I added in all the AAS 2 cards in about 15 minutes.  Then I suspended all of them and will unsuspend as we get to the correct step.

 

Wendy

[edeemarie]

How is Anki different from Quizlet? We currently use Quizlet but I wondering if Anki is superior to Quizlet somehow.

[cmarango]

I added in all the AAS 2 cards in about 15 minutes. Then I suspended all of them and will unsuspend as we get to the correct step.

 

Wendy

Curious as to how you use it for AAS. Could you describe please?

[Tranquility7]

How is Anki different from Quizlet? We currently use Quizlet but I wondering if Anki is superior to Quizlet somehow.

 

AFAIK, Quizlet does not used spaced repetition. This is a *huge* advantage Anki has over Quizlet.

[Tranquility7]

Curious as to how you use it for AAS. Could you describe please?

 

I'm not wendyroo, but I input AAS rules into Anki, mainly using cloze cards, but also some Basic cards. For example:

(Cloze type)  {{c1::F, L, and S}} are often {{c2::doubled after a single vowel at the end of a one-syllable word}}.

(Cloze type)  English words don't end in {{c1::i, j, u, or v}}.

(Basic type)  What is a vowel team syllable? A syllable where two or more vowels are working together to make one sound.

 

 

I wrote an extensive post (#11) in this thread about a couple of different ways to enter actual spelling words a couple of different ways (you would need to download my shared deck (linked in the post) so you have the card type to begin with). Here is my post quoted:

 

Ok, Spelling practice in Anki..... I

I put spelling rules into Anki, but not spelling words. However, I think I’ve actually hit on a fairly awesome solution for you (and I might even start using it myself for DD5)!

 

You said your son needs to write out his spelling words. Does your son type? If he does, or if you could get him started learning, then doing the spelling words in Anki would be super simple. But even if he can’t type it is still pretty simple. This is how I would do it:

 

First, go to Shared Decks and download the deck I just made for you called Spelling Card Types. Click the green Download button at the bottom of the page and it will download. Once you download it, you can double click it (or it might open automatically, I can't remember) and then it will import the deck into your collection. This shared deck only includes two notes, but it will give you two card types I just created for you – one for if your DS can type, and the other for if not.

 

Then, if your son can type:

1. Create your spelling deck. Create cards using the new “Spelling Words Typed†card type that I just made for you. To select the new card type, in the card browser, click Add, then click the Card Type, and the new types should now be in your card type list (as long as you downloaded my Shared Deck I mentioned above).
2. Create your spelling cards. For “Sentence with clozeâ€, type a sentence that includes the word. Highlight the spelling word and make it a Cloze deletion word by clicking on the [...] button.
3. Move to the audio field and click the red dot button to record audio. Say, “Apple. The boy ate an apple.†(or whatever your word and sentence are) (hopefully you have a decent mic; it doesn’t take much)
4. You could do some tagging if you wanted, for things like lesson number, spelling rule, whatever. Or not. Or come back and tag later if you find  you need it.
5. Tell your DS that when he gets the card, he has to listen and type in the missing word and then hit Enter. Anki will leave his typed word green if it is correct. If it is wrong, Anki will show him what is wrong. He can then click Again/Hard/Good/Easy.  **Keep in mind that Anki defaults to Good – it does NOT preselect an answer here based on whether the typed answer matches the cloze text – your DS must pick the appropriate one.

With this method your cards will look like this:

Front when first presented (audio will play automatically):

 

Front when your DS types an answer:

 

Back when your DS clicks Show Answer:

 

If your son cannot type in his answer:

1. Create your spelling deck. Create cards using the new “Spelling Words Written†card type.
2. Create your spelling cards. All the fields are the same as for Spelling Words Typed, they just display differently for your DS.
3. Tell your DS that when he gets the card, he has to listen and write the missing word on his whiteboard. After he finishes writing it, he can click Show Answer and compare what he wrote to the word Anki displays. He can then click Again/Hard/Good/Easy.

With this method your cards will look like this:

Front when first presented (audio will play automatically):

 

Back when your DS clicks Show Answer:

 

Hopefully what I've written is fairly clear but feel free to ask questions if you have any trouble.

[Miss Tick]

Thanks tranquility7! I was hoping for your guidance in cloze cards.

 

Your interface is much nicer than what I get when we do Anki! Apple vs pc? Free vs ? Other?

[Tranquility7]

I've seen a few people here highly recommend using Anki flashcards for everything from science to foreign languages.  I have looked at the website and watched tutorials on You Tube, but I am still having difficulty seeing how making these flashcards is not an enormous amount of work.  

 

If anyone who uses them wishes to share insight into how time-consuming it is, I would sure love to hear about it!

Thank you!

 

Anki is a powerful tool and so it might seem complicated to use, but that is just because it has a lot more features than you likely need to use to start out. Keep it simple to start, and you will find that adding cards is really not hard or time consuming. Just use Basic or Cloze types at first and see how it works for a while. As you get comfortable you can learn more about modifying your review options, or creating your own card templates and such, if you want to.

 

Also, as a PP said, time spent making cards is not wasted. It is also valid study time. I used to make all of our cards myself, but as DS has gotten older (he is now 9), I have started including him in that task. We use it as a time to review and discuss what we have learned and how we can organize that info to put into Anki for effective review. This skill of culling facts, ideas, patterns, etc. out of what we have learned or read, and then organizing that information, is actually a tremendous study skill that will help DS throughout his life.

 

I am one of those people you talk about who use Anki for everything from Science to Foreign Languages. We have well over 4500 cards we have created ourselves so far, and creating Anki cards has become part of my/our homeschool routine. Reviewing them is sometimes time consuming, especially if I let us get behind! But it is time that is so well spent, because everything new we learn can be easily connected to everything else we already know. If our load of cards gets too heavy, I stop adding new ones for a little while so the load can get spaced out again. Right now we are heavy into adding new cards, so our load can get heavy pretty fast. We just took about a week off from Anki and so yesterday DS and I did 3 hours of Anki - but you can't think of it as 3 hours of "Anki" - what it really was was 3 hours of "*targeted* review, discussion, and connection of Art Appreciation, Artists, Bible Facts, Bible Verses, Catechism, Chinese Grammar, Chinese Vocab, Geography Locations, Geography Vocab, History, LA Grammar, LA Poetry, LA Spelling, Latin Grammar, Latin Vocab, Math, Music Appreciation, Music Theory, Science, Spanish Grammar, and Spanish Vocab". It was by far the most productive part of our day!

[Tranquility7]

Thanks tranquility7! I was hoping for your guidance in cloze cards.

 

Your interface is much nicer than what I get when we do Anki! Apple vs pc? Free vs ? Other?

 

Great question!! I use the Anki Windows version for creating cards, and those screenshots were from that version; however, I also have a bunch of awesome add-ons installed. Add-ons are super easy to install, and some are incredibly helpful.

 

You might notice that I have a lot of buttons on my Anki interface that you may not have.  I have the Colorful Toolbars add-on installed, which I highly recommend. "Colorful toolbars" is a misnomer because being colorful is irrelevant. They are USEFUL! The BEST button it adds is one for “Hide this note for today†– which means if you get to a lonnnng card that will bring your review process to a screeching halt, you can instead skip it for today and put it off until tomorrow. And continue on your merry way zipping through your review deck for today. Yeehah! It also has a button for replaying audio on a card, which will be handy if you end up implementing the spelling cards I suggested above.

 

To install the Colorful Buttons add-on:

1. Open Anki (Windows version on your desktop)
2. Go to Tools --> Add-ons --> Browse & Install
3. Paste this number into the Code field: 388296573
4. Click Ok. It will install the add-on and prompt you to restart Anki.

If you decide you want to check out other Add-ons, you can get to them by going to Tools --> Add-ons --> Browse & Install and click Browse. In additional to Colorful Toolbars, my favorites are:

 

Deck name in Title (displays profile and deck name in title bar of window) - 3895972296

Advanced Browser (adds some helpful functionality to the card browser window) - 874215009

Unseen and Buried Counts (shows you how many unseen and buried cards on your decks page) - 161964983

Ignore Accents in Browser Search (ignores accents in foreign languages when sorting cards in the browser) - 1924690148

More Overview Stats 2 (gives more stats about the deck on the deck overview page) - 531984586

Power format pack (allows you to add fancier formatting to your cards) - 162313389

Zoom (helpful to make display larger when images are too small) - 1956318463

Chinese Support (absolutely invaluable if you are entering Chinese vocabulary) - 3448800906

[Kuovonne]

Here are so tips to speed up the card making progress:

 

1) Learn how to import notes from a text file. It can be tricky, but is ultimately very worthwhile if you are going to be making a lot of cards. If I need to make a lot of cards, I type and format them in Word, export them to a text file, and then import them to Anki.

 

2) If the information is in electronic format, copy and paste.

 

3) Limit the different types of cards. I now use cloze cards and vocabulary cards almost exculsively.

 

4) Teach kids to make their own cards!

[wendyroo]

Curious as to how you use it for AAS. Could you describe please?

 

I don't do anything as fancy as described above.

 

I just input all the phonogram cards pretty much exactly as they are in hard copy (letter(s) on front, phonetically written sounds and key words on back).  I also enter all the key cards pretty much as they are in hard copy.

 

Eventually I'm going to look into entering audio clips of me saying a phrase from a previous levels to practice dictation and review older words.

 

Wendy

[heartlikealion]

I believe I used anki on the desktop once and got confused about sorting/organizing/labeling them. I made a set and then once I did that something else became foggy to me. I don't recall what. I made some cards on the kindle fire before for Spanish and I felt like it was a tedious chore (different app I think. Anki app was not working at the time). But maybe that's because I don't like touch screen devices for things of this nature. I happily made a recipe box full of 3x5 index cards for school and found the whole thing more enjoyable. I could just be weird :) It was also a fun excuse to use my new markers that were intended for scrapbooking (the archival quality ones).

Edited February 19, 2016 by heartlikealion

[scoutingmom]

I don't do anything as fancy as described above.

 

I just input all the phonogram cards pretty much exactly as they are in hard copy (letter(s) on front, phonetically written sounds and key words on back). I also enter all the key cards pretty much as they are in hard copy.

 

Eventually I'm going to look into entering audio clips of me saying a phrase from a previous levels to practice dictation and review older words.

 

Wendy

Yes, that is what I did too.

 

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