Ok... is this my second or third attempt to really, properly start this SuperLearning thing? Third, I think. Let's go with "third time's a charm".
So here's how today went:
Brain HQ
I stumbled across http://www.brainhq.com/ a couple of days ago, and signed up for it yesterday - just for one month, to try it out. I'm pretty confident that at the end of the month I'll be signing up for another 12!!! This is really awesome stuff, really fun, and once the system figured out where I'm at, it has the right level of "pushing the limits" of my abilities. Many (if not all!) of the activities I believe to be HUGELY beneficial for anyone taking the SuperLearner course (I plan to write a separate post on this).
I used this as a warm-up today, prior to getting into the SuperLearner activities. Found myself automatically using the memory techniques I have learnt in the SuperLearner course, most noticeably with "Memory Grid". There are a certain number of cards (depending on your level) laid out in a random pattern, something like this:
It's like a standard game of memory, except auditory. When you click on a card, you hear a syllable spoken. For each syllable, there are two cards that "match" - i.e. the same syllable is spoken for two cards. Your job is to click on matching pairs in as few clicks as possible. I found this incredibly easy - and here's how: I simply associated each syllable with a word (some of them actually were words, like "lab"). I then clicked on the first half of the cards from left to right along the screen, and as I did so, created a story, and an animation of it, in my mind. So it might be something like "Matt kissing my rib in the lab, and his mother naging him about the dusty rug". That's 6 syllables remembered very easily. Then I go through and click the other half of the cards, one at a time, and match each to its corresponding card in the first half.
I'm not sure if it's by design that if going in order from left to right, the first cards you click on don't contain any pairs amongst them. Either way, I believe this strategy would still work even if the cards were more mixed.
The other games I played included: Juggle Factor; Right Turn; and Target Tracker.
I did a few exercises yesterday also: Mind's Eye; and Sound Sweeps.
Here is where I'm sitting today: 94th percentile overall; 89th percentile for my age. Note that I'm in the 99th percentile for memory!!!
Visual Short Term Memory Training
Started with same settings that worked for me last time. 400 pixels, 6 symbols, intermediate. Did that for about 2.5 mins, got bored. Moved up to 7 symbols.
Did terribly at that ~3 times, then realised I need to focus more in the centre of the space - rather than allowing my eyes to dart around trying to focus on the various letters, and doing so for way longer than necessary, too! Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Need to work on this - lots. (i.e. focussing on the centre of a saccade, while taking in everything within it).
Stayed on this level for around 4 mins. What I found most difficult, actually, was figuring out where to focus my eyes in time - not knowing precisely where on the screen the box appears. If the box appeared first, blank, then the letters after a short delay, that would make it an awful lot easier to focus in the centre. This is something that wouldn't be a problem when speed reading, of course.
Practice Linking Markers
I looked at this properly for the first time today, and was about to attempt it... then realised that I really didn't feel able to retain anything right at that moment. I may come back to this and the other exercises later today (split it up throughout the day), or perhaps I just need to do less in one day, until I become more used to it? We shall see.
So here's how today went:
Brain HQ
I stumbled across http://www.brainhq.com/ a couple of days ago, and signed up for it yesterday - just for one month, to try it out. I'm pretty confident that at the end of the month I'll be signing up for another 12!!! This is really awesome stuff, really fun, and once the system figured out where I'm at, it has the right level of "pushing the limits" of my abilities. Many (if not all!) of the activities I believe to be HUGELY beneficial for anyone taking the SuperLearner course (I plan to write a separate post on this).
I used this as a warm-up today, prior to getting into the SuperLearner activities. Found myself automatically using the memory techniques I have learnt in the SuperLearner course, most noticeably with "Memory Grid". There are a certain number of cards (depending on your level) laid out in a random pattern, something like this:
It's like a standard game of memory, except auditory. When you click on a card, you hear a syllable spoken. For each syllable, there are two cards that "match" - i.e. the same syllable is spoken for two cards. Your job is to click on matching pairs in as few clicks as possible. I found this incredibly easy - and here's how: I simply associated each syllable with a word (some of them actually were words, like "lab"). I then clicked on the first half of the cards from left to right along the screen, and as I did so, created a story, and an animation of it, in my mind. So it might be something like "Matt kissing my rib in the lab, and his mother naging him about the dusty rug". That's 6 syllables remembered very easily. Then I go through and click the other half of the cards, one at a time, and match each to its corresponding card in the first half.
I'm not sure if it's by design that if going in order from left to right, the first cards you click on don't contain any pairs amongst them. Either way, I believe this strategy would still work even if the cards were more mixed.
The other games I played included: Juggle Factor; Right Turn; and Target Tracker.
I did a few exercises yesterday also: Mind's Eye; and Sound Sweeps.
Here is where I'm sitting today: 94th percentile overall; 89th percentile for my age. Note that I'm in the 99th percentile for memory!!!
Visual Short Term Memory Training
Started with same settings that worked for me last time. 400 pixels, 6 symbols, intermediate. Did that for about 2.5 mins, got bored. Moved up to 7 symbols.
Did terribly at that ~3 times, then realised I need to focus more in the centre of the space - rather than allowing my eyes to dart around trying to focus on the various letters, and doing so for way longer than necessary, too! Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Need to work on this - lots. (i.e. focussing on the centre of a saccade, while taking in everything within it).
Stayed on this level for around 4 mins. What I found most difficult, actually, was figuring out where to focus my eyes in time - not knowing precisely where on the screen the box appears. If the box appeared first, blank, then the letters after a short delay, that would make it an awful lot easier to focus in the centre. This is something that wouldn't be a problem when speed reading, of course.
Practice Linking Markers
I looked at this properly for the first time today, and was about to attempt it... then realised that I really didn't feel able to retain anything right at that moment. I may come back to this and the other exercises later today (split it up throughout the day), or perhaps I just need to do less in one day, until I become more used to it? We shall see.
