Duolingo Math and Music

Duolingo has been doing language learning for a while now, but more recently has added Math and Music.

I tried both Math and Music fairly quickly after they were released. I found doing the Music lessons on an iPad to be frustrating and unfamiliar, so I abandoned it very quickly. I was disappointed by the Math lessons because they only covered some fairly simple topics in math. However, it is frequently the case that I start a new language and continue it in fits and starts because I’m attempting to meet some daily goals and it’s easier (for complicated reasons that are obvious to regular users of Duo and difficult to explain to people who have never used it) to meet some of those daily goals earlier on in the path of a given language than later. I also will start a new language / topic on occasion if I’m trying to rack up a lot of points for some reason, like, it’s Sunday and I’m still in the demotion zone, altho that happens a lot less often now (they appear to have changed how earning 2X points works again, so I’m spending far more time in 2X point collection time than I was for a while).

Because the Math topic is relatively short (currently — I expect that will change, altho I don’t know anything, this is purely a guess), I worked my way through the entire thing (no, I have not 3 starred every single starred level). Maybe 2/3rds of the way through, I started to really appreciate what they were doing with Math. I noticed that lessons were structured to build connections between percentages, fractions, decimals and various graphical representations. That is, they are trying to help develop a sense of quantity, independent of representation. This is really great! It’s a thing that a lot of people struggle with, even long after they’ve learned a bunch of calculus, and it’s useful in everyday life, where often people mix-and-match either on purpose or Just Because. And it’s really useful to have that innate sense of quantity independent of representation, because people fuck up all the time and you can catch that by feel if you get good at it. I think Duo probably effectively helps develop that, so good for Duolingo!

Having completed the Math topic, I thought I would revisit the Music topic and see if perhaps I was being a bit unfair to it. I often do Duolingo and other things in my chair in the living room or at the counter in the kitchen or at the dining room table, and I do that because it is interruptible, low-stakes and I can be available if my kids want to chat, or I can monitor something that is cooking. To give Math a truly fair chance, I made sure I used it when there wasn’t anyone around interrupting me, and I wouldn’t be annoying anyone while using it (I could also have just used headphones/earbuds). For whatever reason, it is much more fun now. The Music topic appropriately emphasizes rhythm (which can get lost in trying to learn the right notes) and like the Math topic, it, too, uses multiple representations for the tones. It uses color, letters, the familiar staff. It mixes and matches what it offers and what representation it wants back. It introduces new tones very, very slowly. I can imagine that someone who has been singing or playing by ear for a while (that would be me) would find it pretty painfully basic, however, just like the Math topic, if you persist, you will close gaps in your understanding quite rapidly.

I know the Duolingo approach to learning is not for everyone at all times. In particular, my many friends who also use this gameified learning system frequently talk about wanting better explanations of grammar. Every time I _do_ go look at any kind of grammar explanation, I wind up finally figuring out something I kept struggling with in Duo — but I really, really, really avoid doing that, because I don’t want to know the “rule”. I want to be able to produce it without consciously thinking about it. I want that other part of my brain to do the heavy lifting. If you’ve struggled with math or reading music, and felt mortified but also still wish you could do better, maybe don’t tell anyone but try Duo and see if that works for you. We all know we suck at languages other than the one we grew up with, so the sharing components of Duo are easier there. But honestly, Duo gives you the chance to be absolutely stupid without anyone else being involved in the process. With Math and Music, that might be quite a gift.

ETA:

Also, dadchats over on TikTok recently fell into some Reddit lifehacks rabbit hole and shared the results. The one that stuck with me was the interchangeability of percentages (50% of 10 being the same as 10% of 50, type of thing). I’d never noticed. R. had never noticed. Obviously, dadchats had never noticed. A. immediately said, of course that works, it’s multiplication. She’s right, and also, when she said that, I was immediately reassured. A lot of people think that Kids These Days [insert something insulting here]. I’ve been convinced that a lot of what and how they teach in school is far better than when I was in school, but there was all that nonsense about pandemic, math education, etc. But if she took one look at this thing and said, duh, here’s why, while her STEM educated ‘rents were gobsmacked, there’s more than hope for our future. Things truly are improving.

Accessories, Tablet Edition

I’ve bought some tablets over the years. (Before that, I bought some netbooks.) I bought a really early iPad, and then a second one. I’ve bought several Kindle Fires. I bought a Surface (yeah, I’m still a little surprised about that, too). Most recently, I bought a Google Pixel Tablet.

I use(d) some of these items extensively, and other ones barely at all. Everything that I decided I wasn’t ever going to use (again / any more) and that still worked went to someone else. R. has had some hand-me-down tablets, as have the kids (altho they also get their own new on occasion when something breaks). I’ve bought new tablets for other people outside my immediate family and also passed along hand-me-downs to them. I’m not sure I could even come up with a plausible number at this point for the total.

The one I use most is a pandemic era acquisition, and a rare one in that I’ve bought a second keyboard case for it because the old one wore out (keyboard functioned, but it was shedding black rubbery bits. Gross). I almost bought a new one at that point, but I really _like_ this one, and I just didn’t know what I would want to replace it with, and going to shop online for a direct replacement was overwhelming. I don’t need an iPad that is a movie studio. Come on. I almost never even use any of the Pencils I’ve bought for various tablets.

When I get a tablet, and when I repurpose a tablet, I buy accessories for it. The necessary accessory is a case, because when I have an inadequate case, bad things happen to the tablet. That’s not the tablets fault, and I like the personalization that an aftermarket case offers. The case often but not always contains a keyboard. For example, the iPad mini has two cases, one with a keyboard (that you can leave out) and the other without. It usually sits in the dining room with the no-keyboard option, and is used by M. to play Birzzle on when we are hanging out. I switch it to the other case, with a keyboard, when I travel.

I have bought more than one tablet that integrated with a charging stand. The Kindle Fire that was the first of these hung around a long time, functioning as an additional Alexa device, and also being used by M. The problem with the charging stand is making sure it lines up with the thing you set it on — this is not specific to that Fire and its stand; it’s a general problem. The Portal Go, for example, is really fussy — you have to have the screen on and watch for when it shows the charging icon to be sure you got it right. I’m extremely pleased with how definitive the connection is with the Google Pixel and its Charging Stand. I’m also pleased with the steepness of the angle on that stand; it looks like it will work well for Google Meet (which is good, because that’s what I bought it for, other than, hey, tablet, it’s nice, it is in the googleverse let’s experiment with that for a Minute).

I did NOT buy the case with the tablet and stand, because the one that Goes With is expensive, and there wasn’t a meaningful price break (at least not on Amazon, where I bought it). However, I have ordered it now, because I like the tablet, and I’m now kinda curious about how that oval loop works out. But once I committed to getting the case, I thought, you know, this is potentially a travel tablet, so I’m going to need a sleeve and a keyboard, too. Just setting the tablet up, I pulled a Fintie keyboard I ordered in error (too big, didn’t send it back; it comes in handy at weird moments), but I thought it would be nice to have one sized right for this device. But unlike the Apple Universe, the Google Universe is not filled with all kinds of sophisticated, Design Friendly, choices. I spent probably an hour trying to find some kind of marginally appealing keyboard case and came up empty. I don’t really want a massive folio case.

And then I thought to myself, Self! You have ordered the Google Pixel case with the weird stand thingie! You don’t need an additional case! You just need the keyboard. So I then spent a ludicrous amount of time picking out a keyboard that was No Bigger Than but Not Much Smaller Than the tablet itself. (I found a backlit one with a reasonable battery situation, so, yay! Also, cheap and good reviews.) Finally, I concluded this ludicrous exercise in Finicky Consumer Consuming by finding a protective sleeve that wasn’t insanely overkill, but would fit both the keyboard and the tablet in its case.

I’m blogging about this for a couple reasons. First off, the details sometimes fall out of my brain, in terms of _why_ I did what I did (Amazon orders goes All the Way Back, so I can at least usually reconstruct _what_ I did — the why, however, can be a bit mysterious). Second, I’ve now engaged in basically this exact same behavior in 3 different tablet universes. You could be persnickety and say, really two, Apple and Android, except the Fire Accessory universe is _really different_ from the Android Tablet Other Than Fire Universe. I can’t quite bring myself to buy any of the really cheap Android Tablets Other Than Fire (altho maybe I should someday, just to see what that’s like)(no, what, come on, maybe as a burner tablet? But I’d have to hook up some kind of payment system if I was going to use it to explore the APK site universe. I guess I could have a dedicated reloadable gift card? Hmmmm.).

Where was I? Right.

A _lot_ of commentators have gone on at some length about how Google just won’t put out a flagship Android phone / tablet / wtf and support it the way Apple does. And I tend to feel like, really? Is that really true? I bought A. a Pixelbook Go in “Not Pink” a couple years ago, and then passed it along to S. (A lot of things get passed to S. and the kids because there are three of them, and they don’t have anyone else passing tech along to them so they are excited by pretty much anything and super adaptable.) It was nice, but it definitely was kind of a one-off. And I’m wondering if that’s what I’ve got now with the Pixel Tablet — nice, but kind of a one-off. Fire is not a one-off. Nothing Apple is ever one-off. They arrive with choices and subsequent models and more choices and accessories and so forth.

Anyway, I learn by doing. And in this case, working methodically through the process of shopping for accessories made me really aware of what you get when you buy Apple products and what you get when you buy Fire products and what you get with a Pixel Tablet. They are not the same. (And also, wow, those android tablets that I’m not buying are sometimes cheaper than the nicer end of the accessories for other stuff.) The odds are extremely good that this thing will wind up passed along to S. and the kids next year, but you never know. I really kinda like the form factor (it’s an 11 inch tablet, which means the long side is almost exactly 10”) and I may try watching a TV show on it to see how that works out. The keyboard I got doesn’t have the slot thingie, but does have the 3 way switch. There’s a bunch of things to experiment with here.