Memrise for Everyone: Educational Experience and Accessibility
In today’s world, education is becoming increasingly valuable and accessible thanks to technological innovations. One of the prominent educational platforms is Memrise, a popular service for learning languages. In this article, we will explore the experience of using the platform in the context of ensuring accessibility for the visually impaired. We will also investigate whether Memrise is a tool that enriches the educational experience and aims to be accessible to a wide range of learners.
History, Foundations, and Working Principle
Memrise is an educational platform that offers users the opportunity to learn various languages using repetition and association-based memorization techniques. The history of this platform dates back to the early 2010s when two British entrepreneurs, Ben Whately and Ed Cooke, founded the project with the goal of developing an innovative approach to learning and memorizing information. The main idea was to make the process of learning languages and other subjects more engaging and effective by creating memorable associations and using interactive teaching methods.
The working principle of Memrise is based on the use of flashcards with images and words, which serve as the basic units of information. Users learn these flashcards by repeating them and creating associations, which helps them better retain the material. A key part of the methodology is the spaced repetition system: flashcards that the user is familiar with appear less frequently, while those with which they have difficulty appear more often. This optimizes the memorization process and accelerates learning progress.
The Memrise platform offers a wide range of courses in various languages, created both by users and professional teachers. This makes it a versatile tool for self-study that can be tailored to different needs and language proficiency levels. Over time, the platform has evolved, introducing new features and teaching methods, making it one of the leaders in online education.
Memrise also offers a mobile app for convenient language learning anywhere and anytime. This expands the accessibility of education and allows users to learn on the go, in transport, or even while walking.
Additionally, Memrise provides a paid version of its service, offering extra features such as access to advanced courses and functions, enhanced progress statistics, and an ad-free experience. Subscribing to the paid version allows users to have a more comprehensive and personalized learning experience
Official website: https://www.memrise.com/
Educational Experience and Accessibility
It’s time to discuss the accessibility and user experience of the Memrise educational platform from the perspective of a visually impaired user.
Let’s start with the registration process: navigate to the “Start Learning” link and activate it. Next, you are prompted to choose your native language and the language you want to learn, presented as buttons. Select the desired language and activate it.
In the next step of registration, you need to choose which data will be used to create your account: a Google, Facebook, or Apple ID account, or an email with a password. I preferred to register using my Google account for its convenience and the absence of an additional password to remember.
Next, you specify your language learning goal, current proficiency level, and you can also take a listening and speaking practice test. These practices are optional, but I completed them for variety. Upon completion, you are offered a study plan. My weekly plan included 15 minutes of study per day with the goal of improving language proficiency.
Next, you will be prompted to subscribe, but you can choose the link “Stay with the free version,” and then select the scenario you want to prepare for. A scenario is a set of words on a specific topic, which you can mark as familiar if you already know their meaning.
In my opinion, Memrise is convenient and well-suited for expanding vocabulary and learning words that are difficult for you, thanks to the ability to exclude already familiar words.
The Memrise platform has a high level of accessibility for working with screen readers; however, in rare cases, there is a lack of information about expected actions or ways to skip the current step. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that these moments are usually quite intuitive.
Additionally, video lessons and speaking practices, implemented with the help of ChatGPT, are also easily accessible, as are the scenarios.
In conclusion, as an experienced screen reader user, I can point out that the main drawback of Memrise is the limitation of the free version. The desire to obtain more diverse and personalized content will ultimately lead to the need for a subscription, but this remains at the discretion of each user. Overall, Memrise is excellent for those who want to learn a language or expand their vocabulary but don’t know where to start.