kitchen table math, the sequel: Help Desk - Best online flash cards

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Help Desk - Best online flash cards

Any suggestions on the best websites for using and/or creating online flashcards for a Spanish language course?  There seem to be so many.
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21 comments:

kcab said...

The site I use for language flashcards is www.wordchamp.com . The German class I took last year used it, word lists from all the text chapters were already on-line for us. It's possible to search and find vocabulary lists for a lot of language texts, in a variety of languages, already loaded there. So, recently my daughter has found word lists for her high school Spanish text.

Unfortunately, I think they're shutting down soon, so I'd love to hear of good alternatives.

December 4, 2011 at 12:28 PM
RMD said...

Anki

It's the best all-around flashcard system out there because it only tests you on the things you don't know.

You can import flashcards from all kinds of sites. It supports the iPhone and iPad.

December 4, 2011 at 12:42 PM
Grace said...

Thanks, kcab! I took a quick look at wordchamp and it definitely looks promising, specifically easy to use conjugation flashcards.

December 4, 2011 at 12:43 PM
Grace said...

RMD, - I'll definitely take a look at Anki, with its intelligent feature. I see it can be used on an iPod Touch. Thanks!

December 4, 2011 at 12:49 PM
Anonymous said...

My son is not fond of flashcards or flashcard-like programs, so I can't help much. Probably the best thing to do is to write out the flashcards by hand. The act of writing helps (some people) memorize more than several presentations of the flashcard.

December 4, 2011 at 7:38 PM
Grace said...

Yes, gsw, the act of writing does help in learning and has been recommended by some teachers at our school. I think it's a great idea, but since there are so many online options I thought it would be worthwhile to take advantage of them.

December 5, 2011 at 6:03 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

I haven't had good luck with online flash cards of any kind; there is something 'funky' about virtual flash cards.

I need to put The Hand at the top of my reading list.

That said, I've spent a couple of years looking for a flashcard app I could use as SAFMEDS are used, to no avail.

It looks like an app called "Flashcards+" will probably do the trick.

December 5, 2011 at 6:20 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

RMD - the precision teaching people find that it's better to test yourself on everything you know every day. That's been the difficulty for me: finding a flashcard app that would let me do that.

I had an app that forced me to rate my level of knowledge on each flashcard, which was crazy because a) it interrupted the flow and b) people don't have great judgment as to what they know & don't know.

December 5, 2011 at 6:21 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

gasstation wrote: The act of writing helps (some people) memorize more than several presentations of the flashcard.

I absolutely believe that.

I pretty much believe it for everyone.

That said, SAFMEDS may be the 'answer' to the problem posed by just looking at flashcards and saying what's on the back....

December 5, 2011 at 6:25 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

For some reason, I can't get this URL to format:

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/2357/2414567/Volume_medialib/SAFMEDS.PDF

Dr. Ogden R. Lindsley coined the acronym SAFMEDS, and developed the technology in the 1970's and 1980's. SAFMEDS consist of a deck of cards. Each card has text printed on both sides. One side is considered the front, the other the back (Eshelman, 2002). SAFMEDS are intended to help students become fluent in basic concepts, definitions, and/or terms; thus making learning more complex information less difficult. Research has demonstrated that once performance is fluent (speed plus accuracy) the person is able to retain the information longer, use the information in new ways, and learn related information quicker. For more information go to Dr. John Eshelman’s website ...

Although it may seem impossible to say all of these terms in 1 minute it can be done. However, in order to succeed, you must follow the rules - “Say All Fast Minute Each Day Shuffled.”

December 5, 2011 at 6:27 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

jeez - what a problem - still can't get that URL to appear

If you Google the first sentence, you'll find the page.

Gives directions.

Especially if you're working on language, I would be working on fluency.

December 5, 2011 at 6:29 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

wow - just found an article very worth reading: Is Fluency Free-Operant Response-Response Chaining? by Ogden R. Lindsley

Looks like he explains why the standard way people use flashcards doesn't work well.

December 5, 2011 at 6:34 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

I'm 0 for 0 today.

That link doesn't work, and I'm not going to fight the power!

I'm sure if you Google the title you'll find the article...

December 5, 2011 at 6:35 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

Check it out

I just found a stack of flash cards ABOUT SAFMEDS

Of course, I won't be able to give anyone the link since that capacity has apparently deserted me this morning.

http://www.studystack.com/flashcard-141695

Keywords: Study Stack "Flashcards about ABA SAFMEDS!"

December 5, 2011 at 6:37 AM
RMD said...

Catherine said:

"RMD - the precision teaching people find that it's better to test yourself on everything you know every day."

With all due respect to the PT folks (which, by the way, I tried doing for about a year), reviewing everything everyday is wildly inefficient, especially as your database gets larger. Inefficient learning is extremely discouraging for the learner as you spend a lot of time doing stuff you don't need to do. Also, if you want to study a language, you'll need thousands of flashcards. It's impractical to think that you're going to review these everyday. Also, SRS systems support audio to written, and written to audio, and all other kinds of learning, so you can really learn to translate a language.

Bottom line: I've given a lot of effort to both PT and SRS (Spaced Repetition Systems), and I've never gotten PT to work well, and I've had huge success with SRS. I'm guessing with lots of training I'd do great with PT, but for the average Joe, SRS is much better.

December 5, 2011 at 6:50 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

Chapter Two in "The Hand": "The Hand-Thought-Language Nexus"

Carolyn used to always say people have to get math 'in the hand.' In fact, I think that was the first post she wrote.

I tell my students that all the time. "You have to get this in your hand."

December 5, 2011 at 6:55 AM
ChemProf said...

This is the thing that really bugs me about the loss of handwriting in elementary school. I can agree that students don't need to do a lot of handwriting in the future, but note taking by computer just does not have the same impact as hand writing (especially for math/science classes).

And of course, they don't teach touch typing, so students don't come out of school with great typing ability either.

December 5, 2011 at 9:05 AM
kcab said...

I agree completely that the act of writing helps one commit information to memory, but for learning a language I find audio very important. I don't want to link a word too strongly in memory to my flawed pronunciation, I want to learn it associated with the correct pronunciation. I can't do that with handwritten flashcards. There are times I'd prefer to be quizzed on listening comprehension or dictation, rather than only the translation. Also, part of the reason I used flashcards at all was to get the spelling, gender, & plural form correct - harder to quickly assess whether that knowledge has been acquired/retained if using a set of physical flashcards.

December 5, 2011 at 10:07 AM
lgm said...

For high school spanish, we used the text publisher's website as it had the audio accompaniment with the flashcards. studyspanish.com was helpful for grammar explanations and practice in context. conjuguemos.com was also helpful.

December 5, 2011 at 4:29 PM
Anonymous said...

My son's community college Spanish class used a Wiley online site (that cost something like $100 for the semester). He found it to be a terrible implementation and a waste of time and money. (He promised me a blog post about it, but hasn't written it yet.)

December 5, 2011 at 6:28 PM
lgm said...

We used learnverbs dot com for pronunciations of conjugations when no native speaker was available.

December 5, 2011 at 7:45 PM

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