Origins
Education has of course been a road to a better life and so the drive for improvement has been universal from students. Students in most United States institutions are not taught how to study/learn specifically. Yet there is now hard evidence for some methods for study/learning being superior to others, and that there is benefit in teaching 'study skills' themselves.
Study software to a degree, seeks to circumvent this problem, by causing the student to follow good practices, through the use of the software, without necessarily having to know about the background science of memory and learning.
Historically the most successful types of study software include Mindmapping and Flashcard software programs. Both independently have been proven to improve learning. Mapping software's claimed strengths are more at the thinking end of the spectrum of study and are criticized for their lack of efficacy once the benefits of organizing information are finished. Flashcard software's strengths are more at the learning end of the spectrum of study and are criticized as being for rote learning only.
A more recently arrived group is typified by the offering by software giant Microsoft, of MS One-Note and are best summarized as being predominantly for information gathering.
There are also hybrids of the above broad types available, including ones that can actually test students on their notes.
Read more about this topic: Study Software
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)