Niklas.Hemdal

This year my children are exploring the use of digital flashcards as a learning aid.  The ease of transport, connectivity, audio/video capabilities, and long battery life of small hand-held devices/tablets (i.e. iPod Touch and iPad) helps makes digital flashcards an ideal learning aid over paper index cards.  Furthermore, it's impossible to record/playback audio/video, jump to an internet website instantly, or easily include pictures/snapshots using a paper index card. 

A core requirement is that the digital flashcard study process mimics the traditional index card process (either independently or Q&A with another person) and runs well on a device that can be easily put in a pocket or school backpack.  While it is possible to create digital flashcards with presentation tools, wikis, Google Apps, etc, these are typically better consumed with larger devices and might require connectivity to use.  My kids are currently exploring an application named Mental Case using the iPod Touch and iPad.

The Mental Case Desktop UX for creating digital flashcards is very straightforward, and the Bluetooth sync to the iPod Touch is also easy.  The iPad is also capable of creating digital flashcards on its own.  Outside of mimicking the traditional uses of paper index cards, I'm also encouraging my daughter to use digital flashcards for her Chinese study.  She works with a native Chinese speaker for an hour on Sunday nights, and could use Mental Case to take full-advantage of the screen capture (using stylus to handwrite Chinese characters on screen) and audio capture capabilities for instance.

It's unfortunate that my children are currently unable to benefit from personal digital learning aids like this because of policies that ban personal device use during the school day.   From personal research, more schools are piloting "Bring Your Own Technology" programs.  It is inevitable that BYOT is the future. 

 

See Also:  The Mental Faculty Website