MindDate Software
Stackz
Flashcard Organizer
7.0
User Manual
V 1.0
MindDate
Software
www.stackz.com
info@stackz.com
The Stackz flashcard visualization concept helps to keep the overview over a large amount of words to be learned by representing your current proficiency state with one intuitive view using piles of colored flashcards. The cards are distributed according to the 'mastery level' and colored according to the 'date of the last mastery' - they become darker over time. This system allows distinguishing easy cards from difficult ones immediately, and simultaneously seeing which cards must be refreshed because they have not been reviewed for a long time.
Integrated dictionaries for Japanese and Chinese simplify the process of generating new wordlists from scratch, or automatically from web pages. The dictionaries are also directly available for looking up information during the process of learning words of any of these languages.
Stackz supports any other Unicode language of the Widows operating system as well. The constantly growing online wordlist archive currently contains over 200 wordlists for Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Thai.
A Pocket PC version of Stackz is also available, bringing the Stackz flashcard system to virtually any place. The wordlist files can be directly downloaded to the Pocket PC, which guarantees seamless synchronization of the learning status between the platforms.
Stackz 7 is a major upgrade from earlier releases. It features a completely new user interface with new icons and dockable windows.
A new tool called Retention Manager was introduced to simplify the handling of the most frequent tasks.
1.2.3. The Role of the Computer in the Study Process
1.4.3. Expanding the Retention Manager Dialog
1.5. 
Representing Card Characteristics with Colors
1.6. 
Handling Different Skills
1.8. Studying with Stackz: Best Practices
2. The Stackz Computer Representation
2.1.3. Working with Lessons and stacks
2.3.2. Adding new entries manually
2.3.3. Adding new entries automatically
3.4. Details of the ColorModes
3.4.1. ColorMode 1: RepeatAdvisor
3.4.2. ColorMode 2: RefreshDate
3.4.3. ColorMode 3: SuccessRatio
3.4.4. ColorMode 4: FailureCount
3.4.5. ColorMode 5: SuccessCount
3.4.6. ColorMode 6: DefinedOrder
4.1. What is a "Skill" in Stackz?
5. Importing and exporting lists
9.2. Other edit control specific issues
III.G Dictionaries (dictionary edition only)
1. Conceptual Background
1.1. The Stackz Color Concept
Stackz helps to control large set of items that must be learned. To get an immediate overview over all the included material, the observed entries are classified according to two fundamental aspects:
Mastering Level: Location
(i.e. the “column”)
every entry is located in a container corresponding to its mastering level.
Unknown entries are on the left side, known ones on the right side.
Additional Characteristic:
Color
the color represents an additional characteristic of the entry, typically
its last positive test or the delay until repetition is advised.
Fig. 1: The Stackz Concept
The Mastering Level is a widely used technique in the traditional flashcard approach (Sebastian Leitner system) where paper flashcards are moved up and down the levels in the box. The Stackz visualization system goes one step further by also showing additional information of the cards using colors.
The colors can show which cards have not been repeated for a long time or other relevant characteristics. This aspect is crucial to keep the overview over the content if the amount of entries is considerable, or if there are long breaks between the learning sessions.
This integrated representation uncovers the entire proficiency state at a glance. After detecting one's weak spots, reducing them is immediate: Unknown cards (left side) must be learned in any way, and thereafter be promoted to higher levels with the integrated Test Dialog. Mastered but old cards (right side, dark color[1]) must be refreshed with the Test Dialog.
1.2. The Study Process
How can a computer help in the learning process? After all, learning is hard brain work which can’t be delegated to a machine. The distinction between learn and test is crucial to understand how the computer can be used to improve learning efficiency.
1.2.1.
The Learn Process
The term “learn” refers to the process of assimilating information in the brain. Information is passing from immediate memory to working memory, and finally entering long term memory. Learning requires a fresh mind; best results are achieved with short and frequent learning sessions covering the critical items.
Learning is hard work that can’t be delegated to a computer – but the computer can identify the critical items.
Stackz supports this process by easily identifying the cards that are not yet mastered (i.e. must be learned), and offering tools to start working on the said content: Learn Dialog, Match Dialog, or even print as list or paper flashcards.
Stackz intends to track the proficiency state, which is only indirectly linked to the learning process itself. For that reason, the Stackz tools do not aim to track the learning effort, and the offered tools try to avoid altering the proficiency state.
Learning is recommended to take place in as many different situations as possible (class, reading, listening to tapes, watching TV, conversation etc). One very efficient way is using PocketStackz, which allows to automatically filling short learning sessions with the most relevant content (i.e. the currently unknown words) into one’s daily life anytime, anyplace.
1.2.2.
The Test Process
The cards are classified by testing, an activity that differs a lot from learning. A positive test moves the card to a higher proficiency level, and a negative test has the opposite effect[2]. The card also changes color according to its characteristics after the test.
Testing itself does not improve proficiency. It merely assesses the proficiency state, which is a prerequisite for efficient learning.
Testing is used to assess the proficiency state of the entries. Because it obviously does not make sense to base the proficiency state assessment on short time memory, new words should not be tested (i.e. assessed) directly after learning them. Re-testing the same words quickly should be avoided too.
1.2.3. The Role of the Computer in the Study Process
As introduced above, the Learn and Test processes complement each other. The computer is used differently in both processes, according to its strengths:
Computers are good at laborious, repetitive and memory intensive tasks; humans are good at creative, inter-personal and tasks requiring broad knowledge, common sense and judgment.
The computer builds its proficiency representation based on the test results. It then uses its strengths to quickly sort and visualize the proficiency state. Several aspects can be examined in order to find one’s weak spots.
However, the computer does not decide what actions need to be taken to improve the situation. The user is in a much better position to decide on his next steps, based not only on the proficiency state indicated by the system, but also on additional information like available time, required grade in the next test, estimation what content is more important, and many other things. After all, the student should decide himself where he wants to put his effort in. Merely satisfying the computer’s requests leads to a too passive student behavior. In any case, the visual representation of the proficiency state is a very important motivation to learn the words!
Fig 2: Visualization of the Proficiency State
1.3. Study Set
The Stackz study processes work on a subset (the “study set”) of the entries in the currently active Stackz Document. All selected entries (i.e. the entries of the selected stacks) except the masked ones (cf. 3.3) are included in the study set.
Study Set = Entries of all selected stacks except the masked entries.
Since the entries are processed in the order defined by the current ColorMode (cf. 3), the ColorMode has an important impact on the usage of the study set.
1.4.
Retention Manager
1.4.1. Purpose
Stackz is a very flexible tool. Its basic elements can be combined in many ways, allowing determining the study set in many different ways. This flexibility introduces the drawback that new users may find it confusing to choose the best elements for their individual learning task, and experienced users may find it inconvenient to repeatedly manipulate the elements manually.
The Retention Manager lowers the entrance barrier into the Stackz system by automating the definition a study set for three frequent tasks and presenting an easy way to launch a study tool.
Fig 3: Retention Manager – collapsed state
The Learning Task buttons on the left side prepare the study set in the active document, which will include the number of entries shown parenthesis. The buttons on the right side allow launching the desired tool to work on the prepared study set.
1.4.2. The Study Tasks
The three study tasks are described in detail below.
1) Introduce New Cards
This learning task concentrates on entries that have never been positively tested before. This button switches to the SuccessCount ColorMode and masks all cards that have been positively tested before (i.e. the non-grey ones).
If the student has never been exposed to these entries, the most appropriate study tool is the Learn Dialog or also the Match Dialog. If the entries may be known by the student (e.g. content introduced at school) the Test Dialog can be used as well for an initial classification.
2) Examine Expired Cards
As memory research indicates, the optimal delay until a card is presented again depends on its difficulty for the student (“spaced repetition”). Stackz handles this requirement with a special ColorMode called “RepeatAdvisor”, which highlights all expired cards with an orange color for easy identification (c.f. 3.4.1).
Therefore, the learning task “Examine Expired Cards” switches to the RepeatAdvisor ColorMode and masks all non-orange (i.e. non-expired) cards.
The ideal study tool for this learning task is the Test Dialog. The Learn Dialog may be appropriate if the expired cards are likely to be forgotten so that they must be learned again.
3) Bulk Refresh Cards
This Learning Tasks refreshes all cards that have been declared as known previously. It switches to the RefreshDate ColorMode and masks all cards that have never been known.
The typical study tool for this learning task is the Test Dialog.
1.4.3. Expanding the Retention Manager Dialog
The Retention Manager Dialog can be switched to an expanded mode with the button in its bottom right corner (cf. Fig 4). In this mode the internals of the automatically selected study set become visible, including a graphical representation of the number of included cards of a certain characteristic (color) above a ColorBand with masking sliders.
The masking sliders of the Retention Manager ColorBand work in the same way as the masking sliders of the main ColorBand on the upper edge of the active Stackz Document. Moving a slider in either of the ColorBands also moves the slider in the other ColorBand, and the masked entries are displayed with a light color in the Stackz document.
Only the ColorBand in the extended mode of the Retention Manager directly shows the amount of entries that correspond to a certain position on the ColorBand.
Fig 4: Retention Manager – expanded state
Fig. 5: Study Set "Introduce New Cards"
Fig. 6: Study Set "Examine Expired Cards"
Fig. 7: Study Set "Bulk Refresh Cards"
1.5.
Representing Card Characteristics with Colors
It’s in the nature of the human brain to forget things that are rarely used. Even items that used to be known well can be forgotten after a certain time. This is most relevant for all content that is not naturally refreshed in everyday situations, such as vocabulary of a foreign language, or even more importantly the writing characters of a foreign writing system. Quickly reviewing the content is often enough to bring the memory back.
The following Color Modes can be used to identify the cards of a particular characteristic and then review the content.
|
ColorMode |
Represented Characteristic |
|
RefreshDate |
Date of the last successful test |
|
RepeatAdvisor |
Recommendation to refresh (depends on date and difficulty) |
|
SuccessRatio |
Percentage of Successes |
|
FailureCount |
Number of Failures |
|
SuccessCount |
Number of Successes |
|
DefinedOrder |
Sequence of the Words |
Please refer to chapter 3 for more details about the different ColorModes.
1.6.
Handling Different Skills
Stackz does not ask the student to actively enter data when testing the proficiency. Instead, it displays one attribute after the other and lets the student decide whether he would have known the correct answer.
Stackz can be navigated with one hand, leaving one hand free for practice writing. This pen and paper approach is especially useful when training a foreign writing system because any other way would not improve the natural writing skill.
The needed attributes and their sequence depend on the trained skill. Any given attribute sequence corresponds to a specific skill. To train the Japanese Speaking Skill for instance, the attributes “English” and “Japanese Pronunciation”(i.e. Hiragana) are needed, but not the Japanese Characters (Kanji). These are needed when training the writing system – as first attribute when training reading, as last attribute when training the writing skill.
The skills are defined in the Stackz document. Any of the defined skills can be selected anytime. The selected skill is used with all subsequent study actions.
Please refer to chapter 4 for more details about the different Skills.
1.7. Using Handheld devices
Part of the Stackz vision is the support for frequent but short learning sessions using handheld devices, including the synchronization of the test results back to the desktop application. Currently Pocket PC and Palm OS are supported mobile platforms.
Synchronizing lists between Stackz and PocketStackz is as simple as synchronizing a file between the PC and the Pocket PC, exactly in the same way an Excel file is synchronized between Excel and Pocket Excel. In the case of Palm OS, the file must be converted to the Palm pdb format before downloading.
1.8. Studying with Stackz: Best Practices
Stackz is a very flexible tool that can be used in many ways. Instead of imposing a learning process on you, it allows you to take the control over your learning actions. Here is a list of recommendations about how to use Stackz most efficiently.
1) Use “Test” and “Learn” wisely: Learn Often, Test Regularly
Learning is best done in short but frequent units. The Pocket PC version of Stackz (PocketStackz) is the perfect tool to integrate such quick learning sessions into your daily life. Any other method without Computer is fine as well, e.g. paper flashcards of the hard words printed with Stackz, or any other method. Testing the words means assessing your proficiency, which is not necessary to be done often for the well known words.
2) “Test” before you “Learn”
The test process is assessing your proficiency. In order to avoid too optimistic test results this should not be done directly after learning the words to be tested. If you want to work on a certain lesson and you intend to use both Test and Learn Dialog, start with the Test Dialog. This gets you a realistic picture of your proficiency, and the Learn Dialog can then be efficiently used to work on the failed ones.
3) Avoid consecutive test sessions with the same words.
Testing corresponds to a proficiency assessment, which should not be based on short time memory. After testing, the failed words must be learned, and not tested again.
4) Combine Stackz with other methods.
Stackz separates the words you know from the words you just don't know, and from the ones in between. It also shows you when it's time to go through the list with known words again. To keep this source of information up to date, testing must be done regularly with Stackz. But learning can be done in thousands of other ways - by reading and understanding through context, by writing and making errors and getting it explained, by listening and getting exposed to the expressions in new contexts, by speaking and doing errors, followed by discussions explaining the issues, and so on. All these activities help to retain the learned issues, and increase the chance that the next Stackz testing session will be successful. Stackz adds the systematic part, making sure that 100% of the words on your list is treated. But learning them may be more efficient in the real world than with Stackz.
5) Combine Stackz with PocketStackz or PalmStackz.
One method of learning words is using PocketStackz or PalmStackz, one of the mobile versions of Stackz. They both allow spending a few minutes updating the proficiency state or learning difficult words anytime, at any place.
2. The Stackz Computer Representation
2.1. The Data Visualization
The Stackz color concept is visualized on the computer screen as shown in the picture below.
Fig. 8: Stackz Data Visualization
2.1.1. The Lessons
A lesson is represented by a horizontal graphical element with a name on the left side and five levels as a horizontal row of stacks. The height of a stack indicates the number of entries in the corresponding level, and the colors of the entries are set accordingly to the current ColorMode. This representation gives a quick overview over the proficiency state. The entries on the left side are unknown and the ones on the right side are known, and the dark entries are "bad" in the sense of the currently set ColorMode.
2.1.2. The Stacks
The entries in a stack are sorted according to the current ColorMode. The dark entries (i.e. "bad" in the sense of the current ColorMode) are placed on top. This shows the order in which the cards will be processed: The study tools process the cards in the order of decreasing difficulty, by picking the cards from top of the stack.
Note: The file options allow configuring the study tools to process the cards in random order, ignoring the difficulty of a card. With this setting, the entries in the stacks are displayed as unsorted, as shown in the image below.
Fig. 9: Unsorted Stacks
2.1.3. Working with Lessons and stacks
When a new lesson is initially attacked, all entries are still at the initial level, typically the neutral level. The Test Dialog can then be used to do a first separation of the words that are already known from the unknown ones. After that, the content of the color-stacks on the left side must be learned. The Learn Dialog is ideal for this purpose. There is a third dialog, called Match Dialog. It is a form of quiz that offers a different approach to the vocabulary content. All of these dialogs potentially declare a card as known (move to the right) or as unknown (move to the left).
A single stack can be selected by clicking with the left mouse button, and its context menu (right mouse button click) allows opening any of the tools dialogs (cf. appendix II.A).
Multiple stacks can be selected individually by holding the ctrl-key during the selection of stacks, or moving the mouse over the stacks with the left mouse pressed.
Entire rows and columns can be selected by clicking on the header of the row or the column, holding the ctrl-key allows the selection of multiple rows and columns. When opening any of the tools dialogs with multiple stacks selected, the entries of all selected stacks are treated.
Holding down the control key when a tool window is opened hides the Stackz main screen.
The 
button allows to select the entire file and
to open any tool dialog with one single menu command.
2.2. The Study Dialogs
Stackz offers three study dialogs, which are described in this section.
2.2.1.
The Test Dialog
Fig. 10: Test Dialog
The Test Dialog is used in the Test Process: It assesses the proficiency of the entries by separating the known from the unknown ones.
· Known entries are moved to the stack on the right and their color is changed to the color of "zero days since last positive test", i.e. the color of today.
· Unknown entries are moved to the stack on the left and the color is not changed.
2.2.1.1. Test Dialog Controls
The Test Dialog is controlled with the following elements:
|
Toolbar Icon |
Function |
Shortcut |
Explanation |
|
|
Quick Help |
|
Open Quick Help Window |
|
|
Test Dialog options |
|
Open the Options Dialog with the Test Dialog page. |
|
|
Skill Selection |
|
Open a popup menu to select a different Skill for testing. |
|
|
Edit current entry |
|
Edit the attributes of the current entry. |
|
|
Undo |
|
Undo last move: put the current card back to its original stack and bring the previously moved card back to the dialog by undoing all statistical records of the move. Unlimited undo levels. |
|
|
Declare as known |
Arrow right; NumPad 6 |
Moves the selected entry to the stack on the right. |
|
|
Declare as unknown |
Arrow left; |
Move the current entry one level to the left (Stackz mode) or to the leftmost column (Leitner mode). |
|
|
Put selection back on stack |
Arrow up; NumPad 8 |
Replace the selected entry with the next one. No change in the statistical records of the selected entry. |
|
|
Step through attributes |
Space; NumPad 5 selection) |
Present next attribute according to the current skill. |
2.2.1.2. Using the Test Dialog
The typical steps of using the Test Dialog are as follows:
1. Display Attribute after Attribute of the current entry.
The prediction can be done in the head, where the correct answer is imagined. If the correct spelling is to be verified, it may be a good idea to write the answer with pen and paper before showing the solution.
The round green button shows the next attribute according to the active skill.
2. Compare the result with your expectations.
Depending on the result, use one of the following buttons:
|
Button |
Function |
Condition |
Consequence |
|
|
Declare as known |
The attributes match your expectations. You are the judge! |
The card is moved one level to the right, and the color reflects the new TestState according to the current ColorMode. |
|
|
Declare as unknown |
The attributes do not match your expectations. You are the judge! |
The card is moved one level to the left (Stackz mode) or to the leftmost column (Leitner mode). The color reflects the new TestState according to the current ColorMode. |
|
|
Put back on same stack |
You are not sure, or you don't want to make any decision. |
The card is moved back to the same stack without changing its state in any way. |
2.2.1.3. Arrow Buttons and Arrow Keys
Long sessions are much more convenient using the keyboard instead of the mouse! This allows you to manipulate the Computer with your left hand, which keeps your right hand free for writing your anticipated response using pencil and paper.
The four arrow buttons of the Test Dialog correspond to the four keyboard arrow buttons. Alternatively, the NumPad arrow keys can be used.
|
Dialog arrow buttons |
Keyboard arrow keys |
Keyboard NumPad |
|
|
