2
« on: August 30, 2007, 02:43:56 PM »
Summary: I've switched to Stackz Classic mode.
It is now 30AUG07, and I am still using Stackz. Because it is so flexible, I've been able to move the piles around, and change the way I worked with it in various ways, and the way I subdivide the cards, etc. It has been well-behaved, and has worked for me.
I came to the forum today to look for a post I thought I had seen, written by the program author, I think, which was a very clearly worded explanation of the reasoning behind his Stackz Classic promotion system. I can't find that post. I wanted to tell him, and anybody reading this, about my thoughts on that subject.
In the beginning, I learned about the Leitner system, and it seemed smart to me. And it is, in fact. But having immersed myself in some websites of some of the other flashcard programs, I was excessively engrossed in this system, and the scheduling algorithm issue, etc. So, at first, I dismissed the Stackz Classic mode. But I want to tell you that as a result of that clear explanation by the author, and as a result of my own experience with this program, I was very slowly converted to preferring the Stackz Classic mode. I'm also surprised by this: I have very gradually realized that I don't need more than five boxes for any of the subsets of cards that I keep. This is my opinion: if one card needs reviewing tomorrow, and another card need not be seen for a month or more, then these cards *should* be kept in different logical categories (different lesson files). I *want* them to be separated, not floating around together somewhere in a system having an unlimited number of boxes. When I first started using Stackz, I worked on setting up a complicated system that, in effect, concatenated lessons into a string 5*X boxes long. But now, I have it set up to operate just as it was designed, and it is just right for me.
Stackz preserves a convincing "feel" of real, physical, flashcards, while automating all of the recordkeeping. Those other systems seem to hold your cards out in the aether somewhere, and feel very distant to me. I zealously hoard my hanzi, every one of them. And I want to see and "touch" and test on any pile of them I feel like, at any time. I also enjoy violating the "system", zipping through the cards I already know that I know, as a break from the harder ones. I understand and accept the principle of progressively spaced testing, but I am a free man, after all.