BP4_Quizlet

Many of the educational web2.0 tools I had seen, seemed more relevant for the K-12 crowd.  There were lots of engaging activities, manipulatives and platforms, but they were geared for middle or high school. 

The tools that could be used in the higher educational environment were mostly things like blogs, organization platforms, and media tools. These are all great tools, but not right for my environment. 

I needed something that allowed for interactive learning (as opposed to interactivity for entertainment or a platform) and was age and subject appropriate. 

Enter: Quizlet, the online, interactive flashcard tool. 

What I like about quizlet is that it lets you create your own flashcard set, based on whatever criteria you want. So I can set the age and content level to whatever I need.

But quizlet also keeps a database of definitions, so if you create a flashcard for a word, you can use one of their pre-entered definitions, if  it fits your  needs, rather than type it yourself.

It's very versatile, with the user having complete control over what they make, but it's also simple and intuitive to use. I had created my own (small) set of flashcards in 5 minutes!

In addition, you can choose to make your flashcard set public, or even viewable to a certain group. 

You can even set the option to allow discussion about a set.  I can see so many possibilities for this. 

In my environment, teaching math, vocabulary is actually one of the biggest hurdles my students have. Math can be considered an entire language on it's own, and without understanding the vocabulary, you're going to have a difficult time understanding the procedures. Yet, my students make little effort to learn and understand the specific terms for math that are so important. 

I also like the feature that showcases and highlights new, interesting and popular flashcards sets that have been created (and publicly viewable of course). 

New, interesting publicly viewable flash card sets

It's a great way to learn something new or get ideas to create your own set. I found myself immersed for at least an hour, browsing through various flashcard sets on everything from human anatomy and physiology (favorite topics of mine) to art history and greek myths. 

With this program, it would be possible to create an assignment requiring them to create their own flash card set, and then view, analyze and discuss each others vocabulary sets. Created sets could be compared to a master set created by the teacher. 

There are also "game" features to make studying a bit more entertaining. 

Example of a publicly available set with discussion features

Above is the greek myth set.  Notice the discussion feature, where people can discuss the information. In this case someone is pointing out an inconsistency and offering a correction. I can see use similar to wikipedia here.  There's also a "most often missed" and game result windows giving information. 

I  love the sharing, collaborative features.  The features give a creator (instructor) control, while still allowing others to use and interact. 

I can see a lot potential here, both as a teacher and a student.   I have plans to, hopefully one day, create an "anatomy for artists" monthly seminar for our art students here, and maybe even teach it as a class... and this would be so helpful to create my own, easily accessible, interactive study tools. 

Hopefully i'll be able to use this program sooner, in my current environment. I definitely have this on my bookmarks list. 

To my cohort, would this be a useful tool for any of you? How would you use this?