User Guide

Create, learn and share audiovisual “Learning Loops” for ANY subject!

When you open Learn Anything you will see the main “Learn Anything” window where you choose to either create or study learning loops.

In the navigation bar at the bottom you will also see “Loop Library” where you can download learning loops created by other Learn Anything users worldwide.

The “Learn Anything” window

At the top of the “Learn Anything window is the “NEW LOOP” button – press this to start creating a new learning loop.

Below “New Loop” you will see “By Tag”, “By Language” and “Favourites” – press these to browse all the learning loops on your iPhone. The next section contains all the “Recent Loops”. Press any learning loop listed here to start studying.

When you first install Learn Anything the program will automatically download 2 Learning Loops to help you get started.

The “Loop Library” window

This window allows you to browse all the learning loops that have been created and shared by Learn Anything users. Either browse by “Tag”, by “Language” or choose from the “Recently Added” list. For fast and free downloads you should use a wifi connection.

Important note: if you use a 3G/Edge connection then you should check your data plan to ensure that you do not incur extra costs.

CREATE A NEW LOOP

Press “New Loop” at the top of the “Learn Anything” window to start creating your own Learning Loops.

Every Learning Loop must have some sound recording, a title and at least one “tag” to indicate the subject matter of the loop.

Record:

“Record” allows you to record audio in either “Auto” or “Manual” mode.

“Auto” mode will detect silences and split the recording into phrases for you automatically.
“Manual” mode records until you either hit “Next Phrase” to immediately start recording the next phrase, or “Stop”.

For best results hold the iPhone about 20-30 cm in front of you as if you were viewing a webpage, and speak naturally at a normal volume. While recording, you should avoid touching the bottom of the iPhone where the microphone and speaker are located; if you have to rerecord or insert phrases at a later date you should record in the same room if possible.

“Auto” mode will detect silences of about 1 second in order to split your recording automatically into phrase; if your text contains dramatic pauses, or if the initial sound of a phrase is not loud enough you may find that automatic more cuts your audio in the wrong place – in these cases you may prefer to use “Manual” mode to have complete control of the start and end points of each phrase.

Please note that to stop recording in “Auto” mode you should wait until Learn Anything has detected the end of your phrase and started to record the next one – when you click “Stop Recording” the very last phrase will be deleted as it contains no sound.

The Social Learning Application for iPhone & iPad

Once you have recorded some phrases you can click the “Image” icon on the right of a phrase to assign an image, or the “Pen” icon on the left to add or edit the text for that phrase.

Images taken by the camera, from the web or transferred from your computer/iTunes/iPhoto can be used to represent the content of the phrase as in the birds example on the left, or as an additional aid to memorization. For example, to memorize a poem you can assign striking images for key words in the phrase and then construct a mental story that links each image with the following image (see “Study” below for an example)

If you have already filled in the Loop Text (using a carriage “Return” between each phrase) on the main “Record” screen for your learning loop, then each phrase will display the relevant text instead of “Phrase 1, Phrase 2″…

Press the “EDIT” button top right to delete, insert or re-record phrases – the recording mode used (“Auto”/”Manual”) will be the same that you used for the preceding phrase.

Press “DONE” when you have finished recording, and be sure to “SAVE” your loop once you have added a title and at least one tag. At any point you can add or edit optional text (see LOOP TEXT below), and images for each phrase in the RECORD screen.

Loop Text

Press “Loop Text” to type the text to be studied (or copy/paste from a webpage or email).

Make sure that you have a carriage return (iPhone keyboard “RETURN”) after each line of text so that the correct text for each phrase is displayed in the “RECORD” screen.

If you have already recorded the audio for your learning loop then you can check which phrase relates to which line of text using the “Text to Phrase 1″ button when holding the iPhone vertically. Be sure to “SAVE” when you have finished editing the text, and then either continue Recording or “SAVE” again to start studying.

Title & Tags

Each loop must have a title and at least one tag so that you can share your loops with other users. You can create your own tags to describe the content of your learning loop, and assign as many tags as you like to each loop to help other users find the subjects they wish to study.

Description

Enter any information you wish to include with your loop – this information will also be used to help other users find your loops, so please keep this field short and relevant.

Language

The “Language” setting will automatically be set to the language you use on your device – use this to change the language if you are creating loops in other languages.

Geolocation

If you choose “ALLOW” when prompted by Learn Anything then your loop will include information on where you recorded the loop – in future versions of Learn Anything this will make it easy to share loops with fellow users in your college or hometown, for example.

STUDY A LOOP

To start studying, click on the loop name either in “Recent Loops” or after browsing by “tag” or language.

Double-tap the screen (or hit “Pause”/”Play”) to pause/play at any time.

The white/grey cells at the top of the window represent each phrase in the learning loop – touch any cell to jump to that phrase, or press &drag to loop several phrases. If you press and hold any cell then Learn Anything will loop only that phrase.

The phrase that is currently playing is white – if you have selected several phrases to study they are colored light grey, and unselected phrases are dark grey.

You may like to modify the images to help you create vivid mental associations – for “The Daffodils” by William Wordsworth for example, your mental imagery might link a “cloud” with “a crowd” and “a lake” by imagining a solitary cloud suddenly populated by a crowd of people which rains to form a huge lake with trees… the more vivid and unusual your images and associations are, the easier it will be for you to recall your story, the images, and the text.

Swipe left/right to advance/rewind phrase by phrase, or swipe up/down (or use << and >>) to jump to the next/previous set of phrases if you have selected several phrases to study.

“Repeat with Me” plays all the selected phrases with no gaps.
“Listen’n'Repeat” provides a silence for you to practise aloud before looping again.

The “O” icon at the bottom of the screen loops all the phrases, or the first phrase only if all are already selected.
The “Star” icon allows you to rate the loop or add it to your favorites.
The “Upload” icon lets you backup/share your loop with other Learn Anything users.
Finally, the “Feedback” icon lets you send us feedback or report abuse.

SHARING LOOPS

To download learning loops from press “Loop Library” at the bottom right of the main Learn Anything window. You can browse by tag or language to find loops that you would like to learn, and you will see a list of the most recent uploads under the heading “Recently Added”.

Click on a loop to download it – once the progress bar tells you that the download is complete you can press the loop title to start studying immediately. All the loops that you have downloaded are also added to the main Learn Anything window under the relevant tags and language settings for that loop.

To share a loop that you have created or edited, first open the loop you wish to share, then click the “Upload” icon. If you already have an account on www.learnanything.co.uk then fill in your username and password to upload your loop: within seconds your loop will be available to all Learn Anything users worldwide – no account is needed to download loops. If you do not have an account click “New to Learn Anything” to be taken to www.learnanything.co.uk – Safari will open and you will be prompted to create an account and start sharing your Learning Loops.

Note: If you edit and re-upload a loop that you have created then the old version will be overwritten. If you edit and upload a loop created by another Learn Anything user then your new version will also become available to other users – the original learning loop will not be changed in any way; this enables you to build on and expand other users’ work. Also you must first share a loop using “Share Online” before you can use “Share by Email” to send the download link to other users by email.