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On Screen with Paul Gollash – Founder & CEO of Voxy

By , 12/31/2010 at 1:10 pm

Paul Gollash founded Voxy with one thing in mind: To help people “learn a language from life.”  While language immersion programs and grammar drills can be useful, Paul argues, they neglect the real-world types of news stories and life skills that they really need to learn.  Voxy “adds a layer of education onto the real world” to make language learning more fun and relevant, and to reduce abandonment in the learning process.  The future of Voxy will see an increasingly stronger set of features across the web and mobile devices, as well as a gradual expansion into all major languages that people may want to learn.

Check out more of Paul’s thoughts about Voxy & the language education industry in the video below, and tell him what you think!

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The Brainscape Team’s Resolutions for 2011

By , 12/30/2010 at 10:15 am

It’s that time of the year again. We look back on the past 365 days, we reflect on our accomplishments, completed goals, and uncompleted goals, and then we think to the future.

Here are some resolutions made by the Brainscape team: including one or two from each of us, anonymously listed. It’s interesting that we all had some similar resolutions! (more…)

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Here’s to a great 2010 at Brainscape, and an even better 2011 ahead

By , 12/29/2010 at 2:53 pm

If you’re reading this blog post at the time of its publishing, you’re probably reading it on a crappy-looking website that I (Brainscape’s founder) can’t stand to look at, considering that we will be releasing a much better version in a few weeks.  Yet the current status of Brainscape is really quite amazing if we consider how far Brainscape has come this past year. (more…)

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Dr. Bill on Vitamins and Memory: A Review

By , 12/22/2010 at 1:14 pm

Julia’s Back! This summer I wrote a post about one of my favorite cognitive science blogs, Improve Your Learning and Memory by Dr. Bill, “Memory Medic.” After continuing to browse through all of Dr. Bill’s helpful hints from the past several years, I found that he had quite a few about the various vitamins, antioxidants, and supplements that might be beneficial for your memory.  I found this pretty fascinating, especially because he refers to real scientific evidence – in other words, these aren’t just trendy “miracle vitamins.” Anyway, I decided to put together a little summary of these posts for anyone interested.  This is hardly my area of expertise, so I’ll just stick to the basics. It appears that the following vitamins, antioxidants, and supplements could help you avoid cognitive decline – whether you’re 17 or 75.  Click the links to see Dr. Bill’s original posts. I also did a little research to find out where you can find each of these memory boosters!
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How to Apply to Grad School

By , 12/21/2010 at 2:45 pm

For most people applying to grad school these days, the motivation thought process usually looks a little something like this:

“I’m really interested in X.  I want to get a better job in the X field than I could achieve with my simple undergraduate degree.  So I’m gonna apply to grad school, learn more about Field X, and then get hired by a great X organization that is impressed by my shiny new credentials.”

If this sounds like you, then I have bad news for you: You are completely wasting your time and money. (more…)

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To Speak or Not to Speak: Input vs. Output

By , at 11:19 am

There is a great divide in the language learning community between those who believe you should jump in and start speaking a language from day one and those who believe you need to silently absorb a new language for a long period of time before speaking. John  @Language Mastery, Ramses @Spanish Only, and Benny @Fluent in 3 Months have all recently written on this topic. Now that I am digging my heels into learning Spanish, I find that I have developed my own ideas on the matter… (more…)

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On Screen with Andy Lutz – Former Director of Product at The Princeton Review

By , 12/20/2010 at 6:09 pm

As our first interview here in our new Ed Tech insider, I thought it would only be appropriate if I interviewed my main business partner himself – Andy Lutz!  Andy led product development at The Princeton Review – the world’s second-biggest test prep company – for many years, and he’s built himself a pretty solid understanding of what works and what fails in the industry.   Andy seems convinced that the most successful test prep solutions in the next decade will be those that allow students to study in smaller, more convenient chunks that allow for greater personalization in education.

Check out more of Andy’s thoughts in the video below, and let him know what you think!

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Is Your Native Language a Help or a Hindrance?

By , 12/15/2010 at 11:01 am


Antonio Graceffo, also known as the Brooklyn Monk, wrote a very interesting guest post on John Fotheringham’s Language Mastery site, on the good and the bad of your native language when learning a new one. We believe that similar grammar structure and cognates between your native and target languages make learning easier, but sometimes…it just doesn’t.

In Antonio’s post, he outlines his own experience learning Vietnamese in a class with many Chinese students. You would think that the Chinese students had an advantage over Antonio, whose native language is English, because they already use a tonal language and there are cognates between Chinese and Vietnamese. He found that this is not true. I have to agree with him when he says, “Mastery of a particular language is based EXCLUSIVELY on your mastery of THAT language, not other languages.”
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The Cognitive Benefits of Knowing a Second (or third, or fourth) Language

By , 12/14/2010 at 11:26 am

Beyond being able to communicate with a whole new population of people—which is one of the main(and really exciting!) motivators for learning new language—there’s a slew of brain-tastic benefits to speaking multiple languages. From delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s, to helping you multitask or adapt to change, new research is uncovering a whole new set of cognitive benefits attributed to speaking multiple languages.  Below are links to a few recent articles on research behind these benefits that will definitely motivate you to keep on learning: (more…)

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A New GRE in 2011

By , 12/13/2010 at 10:27 am

The GRE General Test is changing next year.   I’ll share some thoughts on the new test in a moment, but for one of the first times in my career, I’m going to actually refer you directly to the official info posted at ETS.org, the folks who write the GRE.

Now that I’m with Brainscape, no longer working at a giant test prep company, specifically the test prep company (Princeton Review) that worked hardest to be a thorn in the side of the creators of some of these flawed standardized tests, I’m less hesitant to simply direct you there.  In the past, I would have spent hours attacking the new GRE / ETS in a variety of ways — from new product design to PR and everything in between! But today I’ll just send you there.  It’s a great place to start for an overview of the revised GRE versus its current incarnation.

But I also cannot resist making a few comments, of course.  :)  (more…)

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