Flashcards

Flashcards can be a powerfully learning tool. These are really good for learning material. Popularly, these are used learning languages. But, these can be very useful in many, many other situations as well. Science teachers frequently need students to learn concepts and names. Social Studies teachers need students to learn dates and connections. Language Arts teachers can use flashcards to teach sight words, meanings of words, synonyms, antonyms, etc. Mathematic teachers can benefit from concepts, memorizing multiplication tables, and much more.

Flashcards can be useful for all students in a variety of ways. There are a couple of tips that make flashcards even more powerful:

• students should make them
• cards should be able to be practiced “both” ways
• cards should be randomized
• distributed (spaced) practice concepts should be available

Physical Cards

Flashcards orginally come from, well, cards. Index cards can be used. These are easy for students to understand and create. Lots of colors can be used. Students should be encouraged to use pictures and colors. Cards are easy to study either front to back or back to front. On the downside, portability isn’t always the highest. These can be tough to manage as well. These can be shuffled, but it isn’t difficult to manage distributed learning.

Moodle Database

Naturally, you can create flashcards in Moodle. There are actually a few different ways to create flashcards in Moodle. I’ll start with the Database activity. I have instructions on importing a flashcard database preset available for you. The preset -(see an example) is a Database activity that was designed by some friends. This activity allows the students to create their own flashcards. The flashcards can be multimedia as well.

These have several advantages. Cards are created by students. Cards can be shared within a class. At times, this can be useful. Students studying cards other students created can be useful as well. With the preset, there is the ability to randomize the cards. On the downside, there is no managed, distributed (spaced) practice.

H5P

I need to spend time working with H5P. I’m not as proficient with H5P as I’d like to be. So what follows is from their documentation.
From H5P:

The Flashcards content type is a set of cards containing a picture on one side of the card and a corresponding text on the other side. The learner is asked to type a word or expression corresponding to the picture, before turning the card over and revealing the correct answer.

The H5P Flashcards are interesting. You can create a spot for the students to answer the question right on the card.

I’m not sure that the students can create their own flashcards.

I don’t believe that distributed (spaced) practice is available either. Flashcards seem to be structured in one direction (i.e. it isn’t easy to study “back to front” as well as “front to back”).

Remember that H5P can be available within Moodle as well.

Anki

This is actually my favorite. Anki is open source. There are applications available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and the web. Like Moodle, Anki allows for multimedia options. Anki seems to have all your bases covered in terms of access. This means that students can have access at any time. There are also Shared Decks that can be downloaded and used (but remember that there is power in creating the cards.)

Anki is completely designed for distributed (spaced) practice. Cards are moved into different time patterns based on how well the student knows the material.

Anki is also very powerful. It can easily be used quickly. But, if students want more control, it is very customizable as well. Anki is template based and those templates can be adjusted and modified. There is a ton of documentation available.

Suggestion

I would strongly suggest that you introduce your students to the power of flashcards. As different learners have different preferences, some of them may really be effective with flashcards. Naturally, I would suggest that you experiment with flashcards as well. This will help you help your students.

Even though I believe that Anki is the absolute gold standard, using Flashcards in Moodle can be a good introduction to the students. Plus, the more times students deal with information the better chance they have for remembering and learning that information.