Flippin’ Flash Cards
So here I am, sitting on the train, bored, flipping flash card after flash card, hoping for something to sink into my thick head. What is the subjunctive, anyway, and why should I care? Look! A bird!
There must be a better way to study… High school senior Davey McGavern thought so too, and so he developed iFlash, a Macintosh OS X virtual flash card application. If you want to learn anything from a foreign language to the Periodic Table of the Elements, iFlash can help you. iFlash flips the flash-card metaphor on its head. Gone are the 3×5 lined cards, the cramped writing, and the occasional paper-cut and snapped rubber bands. Instead, you enter information (text, images, and audio) on your computer, and it plays it back for you. Your flash cards can have as many sides as you want (think: picture, word, definition, example sentence to see context). Your stack of flash cards (called decks) can be of any length, and you can organize them in many ways. You can load your flash cards to your iPod for on-the-go learning, or print them out (old school).
An active learning community has developed around iFlash. You can download already made decks of flash cards — or contribute your own — directly from iFlash’s interface. Currently there are almost 1,000 decks available for free.
As for Davey, he is applying for college, and in April he finds out who will accept him. My guess is that wherever he goes, he will pass his exams with flying colors.
iFlash is reasonably priced at $14.95, and there is a free 15-day trial download.
