2011 April | The Brainscape Blog: Learn How to Learn Faster

You have no idea how huge Color is going to be.

By Andrew Cohen, 4/28/2011 at 3:51 pm

During the past several weeks of uproar over Color’s unprecedented “pre-product” valuation of $41 million, I’ve seen surprisingly little discussion about how truly revolutionary this product is likely to become. Sure, plenty of haters have mocked the Color team’s world-changing assertions and have questioned whether a “photo-sharing” app could really be worth so much money already. But where are the people out there speculating how cool Color’s product may eventually be?

Until recently I didn’t particularly care about this question either, as it was much easier to laugh at the ridiculous seed valuation and drift off into bubble debates. That is, until I actually used Color’s early-stage prototype in a group setting myself. (more…)

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Why rote memorization is more important than you think

By Andrew Cohen, 4/26/2011 at 12:29 pm

If you have spent any time reading blogs or papers on teaching strategies in the past few years, you have probably noticed a strong backlash against drill & practice, in favor of “constructivist” activities and “project-based learning.” The actual memorizing of facts, many argue, is an outdated educational practice, since anyone could just google a fact on-demand or look it up on Wikipedia nowadays. The mantra is that we should focus all school activities on the acquisition of skills as opposed to knowledge. (more…)

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Why New York will beat Silicon Valley in Tech Startups

By Andrew Cohen, 4/25/2011 at 12:09 pm

Last week, I visited San Francisco & Silicon Valley for my first time as an entrepreneur. I was immediately impressed with the quality of the people and companies I met there: Bay Area veterans simply have stronger experience building massive technology companies and attracting the best engineering talent from around the world. Even the demos I saw at the SF New Tech meetup seemed to convey a stronger underlying layer of technical genius than those I usually see on the circuit in New York.

Yet my gut also told me that the Bay Area’s dominance in technology startups will eventually fall second to New York, thanks to one underlying disadvantage: Urban sprawl. (more…)

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The Power of Beats: Can listening to Binaural Beats train your brain to learn better?

By Andrew Cohen, 4/21/2011 at 12:24 pm

No one can deny that one point or another he or she has desired a learning aid, a simple thing that can instantly enhance your acquisition and retention of information. Well, it turns out that there might in fact be such an aid, in the form of sounds called binaural beats.

The science behind binaural beats is not very complicated: using a pair of stereo headphones, two different frequencies are projected into your brain and interpreted as one joined frequency. This composite frequency allegedly goes on to help you concentrate, learn, remember, or think depending on the specific frequency being listened to. Binaural beats are therefore a type of brainwave entrainment, a process in which the natural wavelengths of the brain are trained or synchronized to fall into a specific type of brainwave that corresponds with a desired mental state (e.g. sleep, awareness, etc.). Brainwave entrainment is not limited to auditory stimuli; you can also train your brainwaves using visual cues such as periodic light flashes. (more…)

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Why Using Flashcards Does Not Mean Learning Out of Context

By Andrew Cohen, 4/19/2011 at 12:49 pm

Ah, the ol’ flashcard debate. Wherever you go, it seems there’s always a progressive educator who thinks flashcards were created by the devil. My latest flashcard debate this afternoon one with an old grad school buddy from my education technology program. The topic: Arguing whether studying with flashcards means learning “in a vacuum.” (more…)

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Speaking Alcohol: Why do we speak Foreign Languages Better when we’re Drunk?

By Amanda Moritz, 4/13/2011 at 12:40 pm

It is common to hear foreign language learners say that they are able to speak more fluently when in a state of inebriation. They seem to identify a direct relationship between alcohol consumption and their ability to speak a certain language. What scientific evidence is there to back this up?

One thing we do know is that drunken states are often actually detrimental to one’s learning and memory abilities by inhibiting the proper functioning of the hippocampus, an integral part of the brain’s memory system. On the other hand, some types of seemingly debilitating states have been shown to increase learning and memory despite their seemingly illusory effects. For example, people under deep hypnosis have been shown to perform better on learning tasks than people who have undergone lesser types of hypnosis.
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How to Use Flashcards the Right Way

By Andrew Cohen, 4/12/2011 at 12:47 pm

One of the biggest criticisms of flashcards among today’s progressive educators is that they encourage the robotic memorization of facts rather than helping students understand more complex concepts. “Our students shouldn’t just be memorizing dates and names” is a common criticism heard by flashcard-haters across all grade levels of progressive educators. Yet nobody said that using this effective, old-school way to study means also having to trivialize the curriculum into useless knowledge. Flashcards can – and should – be used in a way that facilitates real understanding of concepts. (more…)

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Top 10 YouTube Channels to Learn Spanish

By Amanda Moritz, 4/6/2011 at 1:52 pm

In today’s increasingly wired world, it is easier than ever to use the Web to learn a foreign language. In fact, as you may remember, I am using Brainscape (online and on iTunes) to learn Spanish. Websites such as YouTube facilitate the search for such sources of learning by proving easy access to tons of user-uploaded videos on a diversity of language issues, such as pronunciation, vocabulary and even culture. Watching foreign-language videos on YouTube allows you to capture visual cues and lip movements, while giving you the opportunity to interact with other learners with similar interests.

For those specifically interested in learning Spanish, we have chosen our top 10 favorite YouTube Channels that can help you achieve your linguistic goals. By visiting these great channels once in a while, you can give yourself a great passive supplement to your more active Spanish-studying efforts.. That means you no longer have an excuse for not learning Spanish! So here they are (in no specific order): (more…)

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The Top 3 Reasons Why Flashcards Are So Effective

By Andrew Cohen, 4/5/2011 at 12:05 pm

Flashcards may be admittedly one of the most boring ways to study. But there’s a reason that flashcards have been a preferred study method for hundreds of years: They friggin’ work! While they won’t necessarily instill focus and motivation in an otherwise helpless student, flashcards are hands-down the most effective way for motivated learners to study and retain factual knowledge , especially when they are used smartly.

Below are the top 3 reasons why flashcards are so effective: (more…)

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On Screen with Kirsten Winkler: Founder of Edukwest and Edupreneur

By Andrew Cohen, 4/4/2011 at 2:43 pm

Kirsten Winkler is the founder of Edukwest – a series of video interviews with interesting and disruptive edtech startups that are the frontrunners of the education 2.0 scene. In her interviews, Kirsten aims to find, “promising companies early on in their evolution as a startup…in verticals and niches…that are promising and interesting in the future of education.” Kirsten sees interesting developments in the increasing role of mobile technologies and “edutainment” (see our conversation with Voxy).

Kirsten recently interviewed me for her “Flashcards: Product or Feature?” series, and I thought it would be great to get her expert opinion on the EdTech scene for the EdTech Insider. In this interview we discuss the future of education on mobile platforms and the role of gamification in new learning curricula for children vs. adult learners. Check out the interview below for more of Kirsten’s thoughts on Education 2.0 as well as some hints as to what projects she’s got in the works!
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