157: Tech Tools for Vets 2: AI-Powered Learning with StudyAnything. With Hasitha Jayatilake
You know that feeling: exam time is looming. You've spent three days making flashcards and highlighting your notes, but you haven't even started actually studying yet...
Whether you're a vet student drowning in slide decks, a membership candidate juggling articles and notes, or a resident trying to jam an impossible volume of clinical knowledge into your skull - the way most of us study is, frankly, not backed by the science. Which is why you might need a little help from technology:
In part two of our Tech Tools for Vets series, software engineer Hasitha Jayatilake joins me to walk you through StudyAnything - an AI-powered study tool that generates quizzes from your notes, tracks your weak spots over time, and builds guided learning pathways based on Bloom's hierarchy of learning. (By the way - he built this tool because he couldn’t bare watching his vet student partner making Anki cards at 2am!)
What you'll learn:
- How active recall and spaced repetition actually work - and why highlighting your notes is basically doing nothing
- What Bloom's hierarchy means for your study plan - and how Study Anything uses it to move you from rote recall to clinical application
- StudyAnything’s guided learning pathway feature (just gone live) - that turns your uploaded notes into a structured lesson plan with concept maps, assumed knowledge, and motivational context
- How the community feature works - study groups, shared question banks, and what this means for educators (or podcast hosts!) who want to create resources
- How to generate harder questions on demand - using learning outcomes and difficulty levels to get yourself on the honours roll
- What makes this different from Notebook LM or other AI tools
This episode includes screen sharing, so if you want to follow along, watch the video on Spotify. If you prefer audio only, you'll still get 99% of the value.
The team at StudyAnything are giving Vet Vault listeners the opportunity to try out their top tier subscription (LOTS of quizzes!) with code VETVAULT at studyanything.academy for 50% off your first month on the paid plan. That's about $3.50 to give it a proper test run.
Note: This episode isn't a promotion, endorsement or an ad - it's part of our ongoing series exploring the tools you might be considering. If you have a software you'd like us to look at, let me know at info@thevetvault.com
Go to thevetvault.com for show notes, access to our clinical continuing education content and to sign up for our weekly 'best of the Vet Vault' newsletter, or join us in person at one of our phenomenal Vets On Tour conferences. (Look out for our upcoming New Zealand, Italy and Africa conferences.)
Topics and Timestamps
3:26 Active Recall & The Science of Studying
4:06 How StudyAnything Works - Uploading & Courses
7:57 Bloom's Hierarchy & Learning Outcomes
9:53 Ad Break - Vets on Tour
11:24 Quiz Demo
19:28 Guided Learning Pathway
20:15 File Summary, Concept Maps & Key Terms
29:10 Study Groups & Communities
31:02 Comparison with Notebook LM & Competitors
32:32 Spaced Repetition & Future Features
37:29 Pricing
39:48 Deep Dive: Navigating the Dashboard
41:00 Deep Dive: Creating & Customising Quizzes