The third new biggest feature, after Spaced Repetition and Memory is another exercise mode: the Time Challenge.
Within a limited time (that can be configured in the application preferences), you have to write the translation of the word that unveils, each letter at a time, in front of you.
The result is tracked by Keep Your Word, and you can also configure the number of words that will be part of the test in the application preferences.
Yesterday, I outlined one of the new features in Keep Your Word 2, related to the way the application selects the words that are going to be part of any exercise.
Today, we will take a look at one of the new exercise modes: Memory.
This is an implementation of the classic “match the pairs” game. The object of the game is to match the two written representations (original word and translation) of a word.
Keep Your Word does not track the results of the game so far, although it modifies each word’s metadata to add a timestamp that reflects the last time that word was used in an exercise mode. Also, right now there is no limit in the number of times a card can be clicked. That will change in a future update, though, and it will be possible to limit both the time to solve the puzzle, as well as the number of clicks.
The number of words can be selected in the application preferences.
One of the new features in Keep Your Word 2 (our vocabulary and flashcards trainer for Mac and iPhone) is the implementation of a spaced repetition algorithm to select the words that will be part of a study session.
Until now, when you clicked the “Flash Cards” button, Keep Your Word randomly selected a given amount of words (configurable in the app’s preferences).
You can still do that, but now you can also activate another way of selecting words, based on a spaced repetition algorithm. According to Wikipedia, Spaced repetition is a learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material; this exploits the psychological spacing effect.
The actual algorithm implemented in Keep Your Word is the Leitner System. Basically, we separate the cards in five different groups, according to how well we think you know them. These five groups are mapped to the “progress” slider.
That way, you can fine tune the algorithm, and move up or down any word no matter the result of our calculations.
Obviously, you have to help us while you are studying. When you review the flashcards, you can mark a word as “known” or as “not known”. When reviewing any of the other exercise modes, we mark the words are known/unknown automatically.
Finally, Keep Your Word 2 is done!
I am very excited to start off the new decade with this update. With this major upgrade, you can now memorize you vocabulary using the two new exercise modes, or create relationships between words. Oh, and you can also let Keep Your Word decide which words you need to review more often (spaced repetition, yay!)
Along with the functionality enhancements, Keep Your Word 2.0 also sports a more refined user interface and loads of usability improvements.
Keep Your Word 2.0 costs $34,95. A five sites license is available for $69,95. Upgrades from earlier versions of Keep Your Word are $13,98, and free to users who purchased Keep Your Word on or after September 1 2009.
The release notes:
If getting great software makes you hungry, take advantage of the following promotion: lots of great Mac software, with a 20% discount, using the coupon code “OneFingerDiscount”.
bambooapps participates in the promotion, so you can get Keep Your Word with a 20% off, using the “OneFingerDiscount” code in our store.
Yesterday, we released another update to Keep Your Word. The release of Snow Leopard made us release an unscheduled update a couple of weeks ago, so this new update brings only a couple of new features, and a complete (and much needed) refactoring of another one.
First, we added iChat Theater support. You can read about this in our new Support Centre, but the following image probably will be worth more than 1000 words:
Also new in Keep Your Word 1.7 is posting to Twitter. Just in case you want to tweet the word of the day, for instance.
But the most important new feature, the most time-cosuming to implement, and the most needed is the rewritten import from CSV.
Open Keep Your Word, let it update itself, and let us know what you think of the new features in our new Support Centre.
We have released an update to Keep Your Word, that assures full Snow Leopard compatibility.
You can download it from this link, or just open keep Your Word and let it update itself.
And, please, let us know if you find any issue that went under our radar.
It’s that time of the year again.
To celebrate the first birthday of Keep Your Word, and to help you get ready for the new academic year, you can get 50% off the application price using the coupon code HAPPYANNIVERSARY when purchasing Keep Your Word on August 7 and 8.
Save the date! Do you want to be notified? Download the iCal event.
Keep Your Word 1.6, the new update to our vocabulary and flash cards trainer, is available. You can read the release notes here, but, in short, it adds a new exercise mode, a new study mode, and some much needed usability and compatibility improvements.
You can download a 30 days fully functional trial version from the product page.
