What is Dendro?

Dendro helps self-directed learners overcome information overload so that they can learn effectively and enjoyably.

How it Works

The basic way you use Dendro is:

1. You add sources of information that you're interested in (e.g. articles)
2. You use Dendro's tool to dig through those sources and clip out valuable bits into notes
3. You revisit and refine your notes over many weeks, strengthening your understanding in the process
4. You convert key ideas into flashcards that help you embed those ideas in your long term memory

Design Principles

There are a few principles behind the design of the tools:

• Empowerment of the learner: Most learning environments position the learner as a recipient. Other people decide what is to be learnt, how it should be learned, if it has been learned, and so on. The learner then trudges down the pathway. In contrast, Dendro puts the learner at the center: You choose what to import, what to create notes from, what to remember and what to forget. If your interests change tomorrow, then your learning material can change as well. At the end of the day, you decide if you learned something well enough for your purposes, or if you want to delve in deeper.
• Long term review: Some things change constantly, but the foundational principles of any field can often be useful over a lifetime. By focusing your time on learning things that are worth remembering, and then using tools and strategies to understand and remember them well, you can give yourself a solid basis for lifelong improvement.
• Filtering and prioritising: There is far too much information in the world to try to learn it all. A wiser approach is to split your time between exploring to find great ideas, and focusing on learning and assimilating those ideas. Filtering and prioritising are two broad strategies for exploring a large number of ideas and then getting rid of 90% of them to focus on the top 10%.