Many students find flashcards very useful for subjects that require pure memorization, like learning vocabulary. However, Flashcards can be used for many other purposes… History, Geography, Anatomy, Microbiology, Math, Physics, Statistics (if you don’t believe me just look at the list of topics in the Amazing Flashcard Machine database ) and even learning concept connections (they work as a great companion to mind maps). Everyone can benefit from using them and some of us are naturally inclined to learning in that way.
The downside of flashcards are that they are hard to make and keep organized. You have to buy/cut out the cardboard, write neatly, have elastic bands to keep them in place and spend ages shuffling and making sure that they are all the right way around. This is where electronic flashcards come in handy. They eliminate most of the problems listed above… and can have some added bonuses. Our two favorite programs are:
Advantages of Quizlet:
- It is all online (so you don’t need to download and install anything).
- It is collaborative, which means you can share sets of cards with others (and also share the work in making the cards).
- It allows you to do more than just flip cards. It auto-generates tests with different question styles and even allows you to combine different sets of quiz cards.
- It is very easy to use.
- It allows you to import long lists, which can make flashcard creation much easier.
Things to consider:
- It only allows for one line of text (no pictures or sound).
- It forces you to type a question in to get it right… and the question is only right if it is the exact same as the other side (there are no allowances for synonyms).
If you would like a tool that provides you with a bit more flexibility as far as types of questions goes then Virtual Flashcards may be the answer.
Advantages of Virtual Flashcards:
- You can choose between a whole variety of cues… sounds, pictures (with clickable areas) or just plain text.
- It is not just aimed at vocabulary learning… Virtual Flash Cards are meant to be used for any subjects.
- You can write a whole paragraph (for questions and answers).
- You can tell it to accept an incorrect answer as correct (so suppose you type in “organize” and the answer on the card is “organise”… you can tell the program that you actually got the answer right.
- There is a rich repository of user created cards… that you can add to and share with your classmates.
Things to consider:
- The free version limits you to creating 20 card decks.
- The free version comes with several annoying “do you want to register and pay” popups.
- All lists have to be made from scratch (you can download them… but somebody made those cards from scratch) so you can’t just take two lists of words and turn them into flashcards like you can with Quizlets.
- There is a much less vibrant community of “card creators” than with Quizlets.
There are also flashcard databases out there… they don’t have the record keeping ability of the programs listed above, but they do have thousands of flashcard decks to look at. Here is a list of a few:
Ultimately you should choose the tool that works best for you. Or… you could use them all depending on your needs. There are also hundreds of other Flashcard programs out there (we chose what we thought were the best services for free).
Have you used any of this software? Do you have any comments, reviews or observations on flashcard software? Have you found a better product? Just comment below and let everyone know what you think:
