An alternative to puzzle?

[badlydrawnrob]

⚠️ I currently don't have any good ideas on how to make this happen, Other than splitting a problem between 2-3 different card types to attack it from different angles. Help wanted: If anyone is has examples or ideas, shoot me a reply :)

Every new card type adds a layer of difficulty and cognitive load for the user. Take care to reduce that cognitive load to a minimum. Anki flashcards in general need to remain quite static, and they're hard to "gamify" in the way a puzzle might require.

This is a difficult problem I don't know how to solve

Starting with the right question is half the battle. What are puzzles generally? A step-by-step multi-part question? Giving yourself a snippet of the solution, and asking you to fill in the rest?

• [ ] Problem solvers: sketch out the concept using a framework)
• [ ] Setting up a task: but this isn't really the heart of Anki flashcards, it's simply a recall tool.
  • You could set up an example, and have them go away and create their own (to see if you can recall it)
  • But this doesn't need anything fancy, just a Simple card with a "now your turn" question in it.

It might be a better idea to use a simple card, but a more complex offline puzzle, or question->answer, or drill. Mixed media such as videos and books, with a learning point in card form.

What do we want to achieve?

• Mixed media learning
• More than just recall
• Most of all — it should be FUN! to learn
• Grouping similar concepts (3 times, 3 ways)

Other fun puzzle examples?

Kind of like a crossword, or puzzle, or game — more interactive, engaging, but getting you to think on paper rather than memorising. Joining the dots.

• [ ] Go back and look at the original deck with the puzzle cards
• [ ] Look at other challenges people have created, such as this[^1]
• [ ] Other people have done some interesting things (like a quiz)[^2]
  • Multiple choice can be handled very easily

Image occlusions?

I like the concept, but perhaps something analogue and simpler might work, such as:

1. Sketch out this cons concept
2. Did you get it right?

• [ ] Image occlusion is another option

Other alternatives?

• [ ] An alternative to Anki — Mochi cards
• [ ] Reverso also has some nice ideas (like dictionary modals)

[^1]: There's a world of difference between memorising short answers, like early-stage Codecombat, or simple challenges, to narly problems like setting up a json api. For the latter, I'm not sure there's any straightforward way for memorisation as it's interleaved learning. [^2]: This can be achieved in a far simpler way (see below). I still think javascript in Anki is unwise, as it can slow down page load and is prone to break. Also, multi-option quizzes add an overhead to adding cards. [^3]: The bigger the code problem (or subsequent answer in code) the harder it is to create a card (or multiple cards) that fit together somehow. Anki assigns cards randomly and there's not really a way to bind cards together, so you'd have to link through to the project answer and use snippets of that project in card form.

[badlydrawnrob]

I think for now, #50 might be a good route for this. As simple or complex as you want it to be.

[badlydrawnrob]

A checkbox example, which could be used for multiple select if needs be (use Github style markup to generate checkboxes with Pandoc)

- [ ] test
- [x] test 2

<ul class="task-list">
<li><label><input type="checkbox" />test</label></li>
<li><label><input type="checkbox" checked="" />test 2</label></li>
</ul>

[badlydrawnrob]

I think that multiple {{cloze:text}} fields would be problematic, as Anki complains if no cloze tags are assigned:

Empty cards with no cloze tags

Here's one card that has a field (the only cloze field) without a card. To delete it, you have to deselect the checkbox keep notes with no valid cards and hit delete. Otherwise the "empty" card will show up in your study deck as in the above images.