---
Quickstart Instructions ---
- Press
<Start>
button,
- Type
each character you hear,
- If
it's unknown, wait. You'll be shown.
- Stop
with <Stop>
button
Additional
controls:
-
Use
[Digits in use] and [Preset] to set up with number of characters
already learned from a previous session
-
If you prefer the 'koch' learning sequence, simply press the 'Method in
use' to toggle between the 'Cunningham' and 'Koch' character sequences
Introduction:
Caution! Don't
even look at a table of Morse code
before
commencing! This is guaranteed to slow you down by
imprinting the lookup table in your brain the wrong way round!
This
web based morse program interactively teaches audio
Morse reading, from scratch. Audio Morse is sent through the devices
internal speaker or head phones/set if attached. The volume being
controlled via the host devices standard controls for media
sounds.
Procedure:
If
you
want to get going without reading all this
boring detail, and assuming you haven't ever heard morse before,
simply press the “Start” button,
and after a short pause, the first character in the learning sequence
will be sounded.
If
you think you recognize the character sent, press the corresponding
character key. If
you're right the input field will turn green and after a short pause,
another character will be sounded.
If you don't recognize the
character, which should
be the case if your just starting to learn morse code, do not worry,
the app will after a reasonable delay, turn the input field red and
display the character and
resound it.
In response you should press the corresponding key,
and it will be repeated before moving on.
Once
you have responded to each new character successfully, the program will
introduce the next character in the learn sequence. Initially sending
it twice, and then randomly with other characters that you have
successfully recognized so far, slowly building up the number of
characters in use (which will be reflected by the Digits in use field)
when
you have all the ones already in use 'mastered'.
You
may also notice that when you pressed "Start" the Session Timer started
counting how long you have been 'learning'. You can press the "Stop"
button at any point to either pause the session, or end it.
Second
and future sessions:
Assuming
you don't complete the mastery of all morse characters in your first
session, the program allows you to enter (or use the up.down arrows at
the right of the field) the "Digits in use" before you press "Start".
By doing this, you can start your second and future session 'where you
left off'.
Just remember to
make
a note of the count when you finish a session.
Histogram:
This
is a graphic representation of the progress being attained through
the learn sequence i.e. how you are doing.
Each vertical bar
represents a character (A-Z, 0-9),
and will be updated as you running through the learn
sequence.
Basically a full red bar
means
a character is not yet learned, and a low green bar
means
you have successfully responded to it when it has been sent (with
the bar being yellow indicating learning 'in-progress').
When
Start is pressed, "Digitis in use" is checked and the
histogram is updated accordingly, so if you set "Digits in use" to say
10, then the first
10 bars will be dropped, and updated according to your future
responses.
If you respond correctly to the character sounded, then
its corresponding bar will be reduced (if not already at min).
If
however you respond incorrectly, then the bar will be raised (if not
already at max) and the character will be resent. Put simply... all
bars to the left must be 'in the green' before the next character is
introduced.
Merit:
The
Merit field basically scores your learning performance as you go along,
and can go down as well as up along the way from 0 to 100.
Expanded Explanations:
Interactive Teaching Mode:
The "Teach Mode"
algorithm was devised
by Howard Cunningham, and published in QST, May 1977. The principal
ideas are:
- Give audio stimulus only: The characters
must
be learned by sound, not sight, and indexed the right
way around. Since everybody has more trouble reading than
sending, the "lookup table" that the mind
compiles should be ordered with the characters indexed by
their sound, not the sound, or pattern indexed
by character. For example if you learn from a printed table
that
"C is -.-."
you have learned to relate a character to a pattern, which
has been converted into a sound. To decode, your mind then
has to do an ordered search of the table, sounding each pattern in the
mind ("is it A? Is it B? Is it C? yes!"). If you learn the characters
indexed by sound, your mind becomes quickly programmed to
jump straight to the right character, which is much faster.
("dahdidahdit - that's C")
- Make learning paced, and progressive: New
information should be introduced at a rate accessible to the student,
and only after current information has been sufficiently mastered.
Hence, new characters should be introduced one by one at a
"comfortable" rate. This means that we must
- Make learning interactive: Feedback from
the
student should be continuously monitored to pace the teaching process.
A taped teaching system cannot do this, and even the best human
teachers find it hard.
- Conclusion: Use a computer: A good software
algorithm can implement all these features easily. Computers are
non-judgmental, infinitely more patient than human teachers, and can
keep track of everything. They are thus far better at teaching tasks
involving the imprinting of "stimulus and response" skills - providing
that a good algorithm is used.
I've used Howard's
algorithm for 15 years in my
Morse teaching programs, and it teaches Morse better than I can. It
monitors the error rate of each character, the average error rate,
the maximum error rate, and the response time of the student. Using
these parameters, it decides
- which characters need to be sent most often,
- when new characters should be introduced,
- a comfortable "response time" for the student.
Postponed Discrimination
Order:
The order Howard
selected is
q7zg098o1jpwlram6bxdyckn23fu45vhsite.,?/
Most long, or less common characters are
introduced early . This reinforces listening to the whole symbol before
deciding what it was. If less common characters
are introduced last (as with many teaching systems) you
don't get nearly as much practice listening to and decoding them!
With Teach, by the time all the symbols have been introduced, you
will really know all of those "terrible uncommon
letters at the end of the alphabet", as well as all of
the numbers.
Many systems
introduce the numbers last .
This guarantees that they will give most trouble
later.
Nobody who learns with this system ever has great difficulty
with numbers. (They are actually easier, since they take "longer
to go past").
Please
note that that the punctuation has not been included .
Acknowledgments:
This programs
teaching methodology is based upon ZL1AN's (Gary)
ZL1AN
- Teach 4.1 Learning Morse Program.
And I once again
have
to thank Gary for his continued encouragement and help with the Beta
testing...
Also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code
from where I sourced the individual morse character audio samples.
Testing to date:
| Browser |
Observations |
Google
Chrome (PC-Windows
XP)
V 39.0.2171.95m
|
Works 100% |
Internet
Explorer
V
8.0.6001.18702 |
Canvas
not supported. Not working at all.
As
I only have Windows XP, so I can't test later versions of IE.
They
may work... they may not. |
Firefox (PC-Windows
XP)
V
34.0.5 |
Works 100% |
Firefox (PC-
Ubuntu 14.10)
V
33.0 |
Works 100% |
Chromium (PC-
Ubuntu 14.10)
V
39.0.2171.65 |
Works 100% |
Safari (iMac -
OS X 10.7.5)
V
6.1.6 |
Works 100% |
Opera (PC-Windows
XP)
V
26.0.1656.32 |
Works 100% |
email address: [email protected]
for any questions, feedback, issues found.
|
