By March 2010, Learn10 has achieved two years of service, 33,000 registered users, as well as founders with their marriage in tact! Any other application entrepreneurs who work with their partners will know about the experience of running such a strange family business. We are now two years old and have a great deal more knowledge about supporting an eLearning language application than we started with.
Our experience of setting up and running Learn10 over the last couple of years has been interesting. After the initial rush of enthusiasm was somewhat drained by our eighteen months of 12 hour working days and 7 day working weeks, we were both blown away and burnt out. Learn10 has been merrily ticking on with little intervention over the last nine months. Though we have had great press coverage from the specialist tech press we’ve built relationships with, there was less interest from the mainstream media, who, we are reminded constantly, are themselves inundated with press releases. Our press releases had no immediate effect on the outside world and the lack of enthusiasm was quite contagious, but lessons were learned.
We have entered no competitions, bid for no rounds of funding and made no major new developments to Learn10 in the last nine months; but otherwise life has been interesting, with a stream of workaway volunteer visitors staying with us at our sustainable living project (deep in the Bohemian countryside an hour south of Prague) and the expansion of our little family by two kitties and one lively Rhodesian Ridgeback pup. I continue to teach English the old fashioned way, and my programmer/business partner continues to build websites for other people.
After being under snow for the last three months, we are looking forward to spring, and to our renewed enthusiasm for our past obsession. It is time to monetise or die!
]]>112 Best Free Downloads, Sites, and Services: The Full List
“our entire collection of the best free downloads, sites, and services available today…
Self-Improvement Assistants… Learn10: Ten new foreign-language words daily”
Adam Pash and Rick Broida, PCWorld, Mar 1, 2010
]]>We have developed a nifty little screensaver for members of Learn10 - it shows your Learn10 content scrolling across the screen when your computer is not in use to help you learn your daily words.
If you are one of the first 50 people to email us at support@learn10.com you can participate in this trial and get a free copy of our Windows screen saver. This will be on sale as soon as we have finished some product testing.
]]>To learn effectively, revision is essential. You need to look back on what you have studied because in order to retain new information, you need to review it. Phased learning is built into Learn10.
It would be impossible for us to function if we could recall every piece of information that we came across. Therefore, our brains have great strategies for assessing what information is important, and should be easily accessible in the future. Scientists suggest that those effected by Autism struggle with this very problem. One way we can train our brains is by reusing information, which signals that it is of higher importance. Phased learning is a way of working with the brain to aid prioritisation.
Premium members of Learn10 can review their learning at key points in time after the initial exposure. The points we pre-select are 2,10,30 and 60 days after initial learning. Revising at these key points makes a huge difference to the efficacy of learning activities. We have a free one week trial available on Learn10 if you would like to try out the system for yourself.
Enjoy your learning!
]]>If you would like some help with how to use Learn10, we have produced some (rough) how-to videos which are available on YouTube:
Introduction
These videos are aimed at complete beginners and will help learners understand the different features available in the Learn10 system.
]]>Learn10 uses Twitter and the Twitter API in a variety of ways, from the more complex - sourcing examples of phases used by native speakers - to simply chatting with members, listening to the conversation about Learn10 and participating where appropriate.
You can find me here; @learn10, Mike is @widgetyegg and Jan is @janhorna. We also have a blog account if you just want to keep informed of more official announcements, rather than our general chatter: @learn10blog. We keep our ear to the ground using an RSS feed from a search for Learn10 - which means that we can see when anyone mentions Learn10 on Twitter.
Each language on Learn10 has it’s own Twitter feed - so that members can get regular tweets containing their words. We really do want our content to be everywhere!
In order to give learners example of the words in use by native speakers, we use content from Twitter. To see this, visit the Learn10 widget and click on the magnifying glass symbol on the right hand side of the word pair. This is one of the features of Learn10 I use every day because it helps me understand the language in a meaningful way.
Finally, we organise a word competition on Twitter called TweetCompete! Simply write a tweet including the hashtag #L10en including all 10 words for that day in their grammatically correct form. This exercise helps the brain process the learning task a little more and will aid your memory in future. You can visit our Facebook page to read more about it.
A quick video presentation about Learn10 on Twitter:
“No matter which service you go for, Learn 10 is a practical solution that deals with a traditionally difficult issue in a smooth way.”
]]>“I was seriously impressed by what the people behind online language training service Learn10 are up to”
]]>Apart from the shiny new logo, what else have we added to the user experience? The 10 second version:
“Learn10 gives you a learning habit that’s hard to kick. 10 new words; everywhere, every day. Power up your new language now.”
Why it’s new:
The problem we address is the high drop-out rate among adult language learners. We have created a system which enables members to quickly develop a durable learning habit. We create fresh, new content every day, limited to the length of a text message. We distribute this across the web and beyond via a widget, iPhone webapp, Facebook, Twitter, RSS, affiliate ‘adverts’, email, competitions, a windows screensaver & Seesmic videos.
We create user engagement in learning by encouraging cooperation and competition between learners. You can make and comment on recordings, publish your test results to Facebook, there’s a high score board as well as games such as Tweet Compete! via the hashtag #L10en. Our API allows other programmers to use the data in yet more creative ways. We have proved that limited, “perishable” content and human creativity combine to form formidable learning output.
What’s new:
Learn10 was built using the feedback from our prototype: LearnItLists, combined with our experience of teaching & learning languages, programming, training and conducting advertising research.
Contact Nicola for more info.
There’s more information, screenshots, team photos etc in the media pack:
http://www.learn10.com/media
Including these page links:
Company profile: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/learnit-lists
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolarobinsonova
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/learn10
Do you want a different language combination adding to Learn10?
We can provide any language pair. All you need to do is pay a 200 USD fee, which will give you premium membership to Learn10 for 2 years, and tell us which language combination you need (sourced from translatorscafe.com). We will then have the language you choose added within 7 days, including a transliteration if necessary (western style spelling).
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