The Dark Side of the Reorder Script?

aniustaluwis said...
LogicalPhallusy said...
Leebo said...
riccyjay said...     Um, yeah. I do. Along with, in my experience, the vast, vast majority.
 The vast majority of... all people? I went to school back when they still had to teach us typing because it wasn't a given that people even had computers at home. Nowadays, kids are typing from super early ages, they can't all be hunting and pecking. 
USA, was in grade school through the late 1990s. Typing was required curriculum. Then it was required again in middle school. Twice. Then i took it in highschool as an elective.

Are schools not like this anymore?

Edit: autocorrect anti-grammar
 
 i remember typing being required in middle school in the mid 2000's, so by my time it had not changed. I guess it's no longer a thing?
 Probably a conspiracy by Apple to make everyone helplessly reliant on keyboardless iPads for schoolwork, thus reinforcing a cycle of institutionalized Apple purchases.

We were required to take typing classes twice as well, not that I learned anything. My skill in writing without looking on the keys developed on its own years later.

I only use the reorder script to do radicals first. Then I divide the rest of the lessons by 4 and I do that amount each day. That way, I can still go to max speed without letting my number of lessons going too high.

Actually, the reason I can type fast no-looking, is because I used to train in piano and I like to experiment things. Also, this is a keyboard, not a typewriter, so the key isn’t very hard to press.

Along with Mistake Delay, WK Override, do you even Kana, and no Cigar, reviewing 200+ vocabs becomes no problem. Even if I use reorder script, I rarely pile up vocabs, coz I just quickly clear them all when I have time.

It is just that I am a doctor and I can have a phone call any minute. I have to always be prepared for the review delay.

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You can use userscripts with Firefox for Android, apparently, but
probably it won’t work well if you don’t have a Japanese input method
(wanakana.js doesn’t work well, I believe, which is why the WaniKani app
uses its own IME). You can always set up Google’s Japanese keyboard
(that flick-based one) though.

patarapolw said... Actually, the reason I can type fast no-looking, is because I used to train in piano and I like to experiment things. Also, this is a keyboard, not a typewriter, so the key isn't very hard to press.
 The general consensus seems to be, as I kind of thought, that it's not really that unusual of an ability, to not have to look at the keyboard. It's how typing is taught. I was just a bit confused why you thought it was unusual.

Anecdotal counter evidence: Most of my students (age 10-16) have trouble typing without looking at the (normal-sized) keyboard because they are so used to touchscreens, autocomplete and swiping.

Leebo said...
patarapolw said... Actually, the reason I can type fast no-looking, is because I used to train in piano and I like to experiment things. Also, this is a keyboard, not a typewriter, so the key isn't very hard to press.
 The general consensus seems to be, as I kind of thought, that it's not really that unusual of an ability, to not have to look at the keyboard. It's how typing is taught. I was just a bit confused why you thought it was unusual.
 I've seen plenty of people who look at the keyboard or use one finger of each hand, and they're not that old (30s). I'm surprised to see so many mentions of learning typing being a mandatory thing even in the 90s, the only reason I learned touch-typing was I took extracurricular classes. Never heard of it being mandatory (or even available as regular classes) back in Spain during those years, doubt it is even now o.O

And this together with the overright script creates too much power. And with power comes great responsibility.

To be fair, I’m from America, where each state has its own education standards, but my younger siblings are growing up in different states to the one I grew up in tell me they learned typing at school. I suppose it’s not universal, but you certainly don’t need to be a pianist to do it.

I guess this thread is derailing a little bit now, but I learned typing in elementary and middle school also. My impression was  that most people that 15-40 nowadays are touch typists, but maybe my sample is skewed…The only people I see typing while looking at the keyboard are people 50+, but I guess there are a bunch of people that never had a typing curriculum. Interesting

Actually, some people types with only their index fingers. Still, they are touch typists. It has nothing to do with typing class or pianist. More about the sense.

dogboydog said... I guess this thread is derailing a little bit now, but I learned typing in elementary and middle school also. My impression was  that most people that 15-40 nowadays are touch typists, but maybe my sample is skewed...The only people I see typing while looking at the keyboard are people 50+, but I guess there are a bunch of people that never had a typing curriculum. Interesting
 i had typing classes but i never took advantage of it. at the time i was a weird touch typist who did not stick to the home-row and just used my index and middle fingers but didn't look at the keyboard. It always annoyed me that the class expected me to type in a different way than the way I was used to so I was defiant in that class and did anything BUT use the typing training program.

Nowadays I use all my fingers, but i still don't stick to the home row much and the right shift key still doesn't exist to me. (I use exclusively the left shift)

Also fun fact I started learning to type japanese with kana input first due to a fluke, even though most typists prefer romaji input. I tried switching to romaji input recently (mostly cus i noticed net slang like おk are probably an artifact of romaji typing) but it confused me and I didn't like it much so I switched back lol.
rfindley said...
LogicalPhallusy said... Here's the thing about the reorder script.

The FAQ/Guide mention a bit of memory science, a long term memory steroid, known as interleaving. It works alongside the SRS. By using the reorder script you are eliminating interleaving and cheating yourself out of something you paid for--a further boost in Japanese vocab retention.
 That's the cited principal I was referring to in my post.  I can see why they think that's what the interleaving principal is talking about, but if you read the science literature carefully, I think they're slightly off the mark.  But that's just my opinion.
I hope this isn't too thread derail-y, but I'd be quite interested to know a bit more about your take on the research and how you think they're misunderstanding it... (Just not interested/un-lazy enough to actually read said reports myself I guess :) )

From what I gathered from the tofugu article, Koichi's take on it was that it's the chance of seeing the same item in different circumstances (radicals, kanji and vocab as it were) that helps reinforce it more than just studying in isolation?

Personally I take the liberty of messing with the randomness if it makes it easer to fit the studying into my life, but otherwise leave it as is.

I touch-typed pretty normally from middle school typing class, but then I learned to type VERY quickly when I started playing an online pictionary game as a teenager. My brother is also a quick typist because of his gaming. I’m guessing many quick typists become that way because of the urgency of playing or communicating in games… 
My mom is also a touch typist (~55 years old), but slower than my brother and I. She said she first learned how to type on a typing machine where you really had to press down on the buttons hard, so her transition to a modern keyboard was awkward because she wanted to pound the keys. She still lifts her fingers up really high when she types.
My dad types at a normal speed but with his index fingers and glancing at the keyboard every once in a while. 

sorry for contribute derailing〜 as for me keyboard is often just as shortcut tool〜 so typing is second nature and  im must admit im always looking keyboard when typing (like typing this)〜

everybody grow with different computer environment thus have different daily habits〜 person primarily edit video more agile with tangent devices instead of keyboard〜 person primarily create audio more familiar using DAW controllers instead of seeking with keyboard〜 illustrator are mostly using pen tablet and 左デバイス instead of standard keyboard〜 off course they is not match with typist or secretary with awesome 200 wpm without looking keyboard〜

ah okay let this the last derailleur〜 back to topic〜 dark effect reorder script?

im start to compare result 1x1 mode vs WK vanilla from today 〜☆

@Minamix Starting from now, I’ll be testing 1x1 mode for the time being, so that I can get a feel for the difference! :smiley:

I tried it just now, and I think that 1x1 mode feels like slightly more work. But I’ll keep using it and see what it’s like.

aniustaluwis said... @Minamix Starting from now, I'll be testing 1x1 mode for the time being, so that I can get a feel for the difference! :D

I tried it just now, and I think that 1x1 mode feels like slightly more work. But I'll keep using it and see what it's like.
 oh yeah〜 i'll plan to use it twice from my vanilla level〜 (lv 1-17 vanilla) vs (lv 18-30 1x1) 
im exclude level 10 and 15 since all kanji is already known very well so vanilla level is only counted as 15 level excluding level 10 & 15, and let the rest upcoming 15 level play in 1x1 mode〜
crihak said...
rfindley said...
LogicalPhallusy said...Here's the thing about the reorder script.

The FAQ/Guide mention a bit of memory science, a long term memory steroid, known as interleaving. It works alongside the SRS. By using the reorder script you are eliminating interleaving and cheating yourself out of something you paid for--a further boost in Japanese vocab retention.
 That's the cited principal I was referring to in my post.  I can see why they think that's what the interleaving principal is talking about, but if you read the science literature carefully, I think they're slightly off the mark.  But that's just my opinion.
I hope this isn't too thread derail-y, but I'd be quite interested to know a bit more about your take on the research and how you think they're misunderstanding it... (Just not interested/un-lazy enough to actually read said reports myself I guess :) )
[...]
I'll preface this by noting that I'm not an expert.  I just study this stuff, and form opinions and theories that have some roots in neurophysiology and human learning.

 Interleaving has three components:
1) contextual interference -- interrupting your current context to do something different.
2) spacing -- because you do something else between each iteration of item.
3) what I'll call temporal coalescence, because I don't know if there's an official name for it -- when different-but-related things are repeated close together in time, you'll pick up on the relationships between them.

(1) Contextual interference is good when the process is important, such as in sports and mathematics.  The brain implements efficiency by naturally building context, then minimizing work by working within that context.  For example, if you do the same kind of math problem repeatedly, the 'context' is the type of problem, which you have to figure out how to solve the first time.  Then for each additional similar problem, you just plug the new numbers into the formula.  This is weak practice.  If you use interleaving, then you are having to figure out new types of problems each time as you go, which is ultimately what you need to practice.

In language, stable context is important.  With every word you read or hear, you don't need to think about whether it's a radical, kanji, or vocab, nor whether to recall the reading or a meaning.  In real communication, you're always dealing with words (not individual radicals or kanji), and the reading and meaning need to be simultaneous.  So, the contextual interferance of randomized WK reviews makes you spend extra time practicing a part that you won't use in real communication (i.e. determining whether you are using radicals, kanji, or vocab, etc.).

(2) Spacing is the valuable part for WK.  But you're already getting that via the SRS.

(3) Temporal coalescence is very valuable in language.  But you need to interleave material that actually has relationships to discover.  The few things where temporal coalescence applies to WK reviews is: similar kanji, similar vocab, and phono-semantic patterns.  None of those things are really enhanced by randomizing reviews, though.  You'd discover the relationships easier if they were presented as a block.  In fact, one French language study found that blocking, not interleaving, was more effective in helping students learn relationships between words.  I suspect the same may be true if you grouped kanji together and vocab together, especially if they could be grouped by related items (similar kanji, phono-semantic patterns, etc).

An ideal example of interleaving in foreign language practice would be small batches of grammar point examples.  Practice the same grammar point on a handful of examples, which helps you see how that grammar point works.  Then do a different grammar point (again with a small batch of examples), then come back to the first point sometime later, which gives you additional practice recalling how that grammar point works.  That's where most of interleaving's success is:  mixing some previous material among new material, as opposed to progressing straight through a textbook.
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Thanks @rfindley for explaining, it really was interesting! I thought myself on reading the tofugu article that it didn’t seem all that likely for similar words and kanji to actually appear together just by random.

From what you’re describing, it sounds like it might be useful to batch reviews together based on similarity in either meaning or kanji, and then space small portions of those out?

Would sorting by level in the reorder script somewhat achieve this? I’m thinking this since kanji will naturally be more common in the levels where they were introduced (and similar-meaning kanji is often introduced in the same level as well), while still being present to a lesser extent throughout.