Today we’ll take a look at some of the better applications with flash cards for Android, which teachers could recommend to students for studying flashcards in their classes. There’s a number of applications out there, so if none of these take your fancy, there’s still plenty more free options to choose from.

When trying to decide which application to write the flashcards for, there’s a number of things to consider :

• How much information can you put on each card?
• Does it allow pictures, videos and URLs?
• How easy is it to write a new set of flashcards?
• Is there a web interface?
• How easy is it to backup your flashcards?
• How easily can students transfer those flashcards to another format which suits them better?
• Is there a client for iPhone, Android and Blackberry?
• Does this flashcard application keep track of your progress and show you the flashcards in an intelligent manner?
• How big is the application?
• Overall, how easy is the application to use?

StudyDroid

StudyDroid is an easy-to-use flashcard application. You can get started very quickly making your own flashcards by clicking “add“. You can also make your own flashcards on your computer or you can browse the public flashcards at Studydroid to find something you like. When making your cards, it’s easy to change the text size or colour of the cards to make them more memorable.

GFlash+

GFlash+ is my personal favourite flashcard application for Android. I like that I can keep a Google document with the up-to-date flashcard information and occasionally re-sync the phone’s flashcards to the online version. All that’s required is to build (or import) a simple spreadsheet in Google Documents and share it with the email address gwhizmobile@gmail.com, thus sharing it publicly to all gFlash+ users.

The free version won’t allow URLs or embedded media, but it’s still very useful to have control over the public version of your original flashcards, since you can add to them or fix minor errors.

Kaka Flashcards

Kaka Flashcards lets you import public flashcards from Studystack or Quizlet easily via their application, from your SD card, using a QR code and many other ways. You can also quickly export your cards as .csv for later use or for use with other flashcard programs. It’s got a great interface and looks very professional. Cards are shown to learners according to the Leitner system.

More Android Education

If you’re into self-education and want some ideas for edutainment on your Android or online, here’s a few more articles you’ll probably appreciate:

• 5 Cool Android Apps with GPS Activities For Kids
• Top 5 Sites to Help You Find Apps for Your Android Phone
• The Five Best Educational YouTube Channels
• 5 Cool Edutainment Games You Can Play and Also Donate To Charitable Causes

Do you use flashcard apps on your phone? What’s your app with flash cards for Android? Why? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

The Eldy Association is an Italian non-profit organization looking to make it easier for new computer users to learn about email, browsing the web and more. According to its website, the Association’s goal is to “reach out to the elderly and disabled community with a simple computer program that can encourage their staying active and social, thus reducing their isolation and loneliness”.

What Is Eldy?

The resulting computer program that the Eldy Association came up with is Eldy, a bundle of essential programs in a easy-to-understand interface for the elderly, with big text and simple, recognizable icons, that has been translated to 22 languages. Think of it as a blown-up mini-operating system that contains an email client, chat system, web browser and even access to a simplified version of Notepad, Eldy TV, and Skype.

Installing Eldy

Though it’s like an operating system, you can install (and uninstall) Eldy like any other program. I should mention that although Eldy is available for Windows and Linux, the version for Mac is actually in beta. After you install the version for your OS, it will ask you a few questions so you can set up your own email account and profile/username for the chat system.

Here is where you get the chance to set up your own email account if you know the POP3 or IMAP settings in the “expert” route, but it can also set you up with a brand new @eldy.org email address in the “beginner” route.

What Eldy Lets You Do With Ease

Once you’re done answering those, you get The Square.

Here, you can clearly see what programs to use to perform a task. You can check your mail, browse the web, chat, and watch TV. You will have the Back button available anywhere you go for easy access to a page back or to the Square. On my Windows Vista machine, Eldy ran pretty smoothly and the experience was nice and snappy.

The email client provides simple instructions to do the basics, either read your mail, write an email or see your contacts.

I noticed that when you write an email though, a link to Eldy’s website gets appended, which may not be a bad thing as it could help your fellow senior friends learn about this easy-to-use tool.

The web browser is also easy to use with a main portal (or homepage) where you can see bookmarks you’ve set. You can adjust the font size using a slider with magnifier icons.

In the chat area, you can choose to join a public chatroom to meet new people or chat with friends on the Eldy network.

If you need more features, like video chatting, you can use Skype, which is under Useful Tools in the Square.

You can also edit your profile and detail what you are doing, which would be like tweeting or posting a status update.

You can watch Eldy TV which means you basically get access to Hulu, YouTube, Fancast and the like. Under Useful Tools, you get access to Notepad (since you probably won’t need a full office suite), Skype like I mentioned before, and a document browser, where you can select images and files to view and delete.

There’s no program to help users practice their typing, which could be very useful. Overall though, Eldy is an excellent tool for seniors to learn how to use simple computer programs. Not only that, Eldy has even made things extremely easy for anyone that actually wants to show and teach a senior how to email, chat, etc.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are also programs geared for children. If you want to teach your kid, for example, a fun way to learn the alphabet, there are games just for that. Want to teach them how to type? Here are 3 excellent websites. Want to teach them computer languages? There is Scratch. There are many educational websites to keep kids happy.

Do you know of any other programs that facilitate tasks for new computer users?  Or have you been trying to teach an elderly person how to use the Internet? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments!

Kidblog.org is a service designed by teachers for teachers. They have made the process of creating and monitoring a class blog safe and efficient. Sign-ups are fast and simple, making it easy to co-ordinate a whole class of new students. At the same time, the blog’s privacy and security is protected by default. This makes life incredibly easy for the teacher, allowing you to get straight in to the fun bit of blogging!

The primary differences between Kidblog and any other free blogging platform is the default class-only privacy level and the superbly easy way of bulk-adding user accounts for students without requiring email addresses and confirmation of invites. Anyone who has ever tried to set up a group-run blog can attest that it’s sometimes a little tricky to ensure the technophobes verify their invites. Imagine doing that with a class-full of kids! The Kidblog system means you skip all of that fuss and move on to the blogging straight away. If you have your .csv file ready, you could sign up and have your kids blogging in less than five minutes!

Setting up a teacher account

The teacher account is a straightforward sign-up: choose a password, add a few details and you’re in.

Create a New Class

The blog creation is controlled by “classes”. The theory is that you’ll want the class to collaborate on a blog together, with all members as users of that blog.

The class name is the blog name, which becomes part of the URL for the class blog too. You’ll want to set up initially as one class, even if there’s smaller group projects within the class, since the default privacy level is for students to be able to see other classmate’s work. If they’re not in the same class, they won’t be able to see it (or you’ll need to change the privacy).

You’re limited to 200 kids per class, but it’s suggested that if you need more usernames you simply start a new class, add the new users to that and then invite them to the original class. You can easily keep adding classes every school year and importing the users from older classes. This gives the kids a little continuity, too.

Privacy and Security

Permissions for viewing posts are set by default to “Class members only”, so only the people you’ve added to this class will be able to see posts. It’s also possible to add more teachers to administrate and to add parent accounts as guests if you want to enable parents to see the classwork. Comments are set to be moderated by default, so teachers will be able to block any of the nasty comments made by certain kids. If you do choose to make the blog public, you can continue to filter unsolicited comments.

Add Users

Adding users can be done individually or as a bulk upload, which is recommended.

The bulk upload involves creating a .csv file with just name and password. You can do this easily by using a spreadsheet with a column for name and a column for passwords, then exporting it as a .csv file.

Once the users are added, they can log in and start writing straight away. Don’t worry about the usernames – your kids won’t need to memorise those!

Groups

If you’ve got several groups of kids in the one class all working on different group projects, you’ll want to set up appropriate “Groups” each with relevant names.

Once the groups are set up, kids viewing the blog can look at posts just by one person or filter to show just relevant groups.

For Kids

Tell your students to go to the blog URL (you find your blog URL by clicking on the “Go to Class Blog” link at the top of your dashboard). Kids can click on the “Log In” link and they are given a drop-down list of names to choose from. So, they only need to remember a password!

Once logged in, they can browse their friend’s posts or filter for groups using the drop-down menu. They can write posts which must then be moderated by the teacher before publishing.

Overview

Kidblog is based on WordPress, but has been customised with a teacher’s needs in mind. It’s free, uncluttered, ad-free, easy to set up and private by default. No information is collected from students and the teacher remains in control of all activity. My only request to Kidblog would be to add a few more default themes so that there can be a little more variety!

I strongly encourage all teachers and other facilitators of kids activities to have a go at using Kidblog. The possibilites are endless: writing groups; book clubs; assignments; group work; uploading photos of artwork; team spirit and post-game analysis; practise blogging in a second language; or getting kids to simply list off the most interesting things they learned that day. What will you use Kidblog for?

If you want more to read, here’s some articles you’ll love:

• 10 Online Learning Tools
• 2 Sites for Teachers to Download Teaching Resources
• Make History Fun by Teaching CSI Style
• 5 Free Online Encyclopedias Suitable for Kids

Image Credit: Shutterstock

With the right eco-education, we can hope they will hit the ground running. A lot of schools and educational institutions are doing their bit by including the environment as part of the curriculum. Words like “˜carbon footprint’ and global warming’ comes to them as easily as the name of any present-day rock star.

That’s cool. But who said that ecological or environmental education needs to be bookish or donnish?  Thanks to online games, it can be brought out from textbooks into the fun world. Online environmental games games that teach kids about animals and conservation make the task interactive.

Children can immediately learn that each action has a contributing effect. Plus, these interactive educational websites on the environment make both the teaching and learning enjoyable without losing out on the lessons.

Here are ten games and game websites that teach kids about the environment and the world around them.

Planet Science

The Planet Science games cupboard is a collection of online interactive games and other fun activities like quizzes. Try your hand on Planet 10 and see if you can create a perfect world. It’s not that easy because you have to mix and match the building blocks to create a perfect world.

Or you could learn a bit about energy and its conservation from the lighter games like Energize.

BBC Climate Change

Here’s your chance to see if you can do better in the hot seat. The game tests your decision making skills while holding the top job of President of the European Nations. You must tackle climate change and stay popular enough with the voters to remain in office.

Clim’way

The Clim’way game is again about helping the larger community reach some specific climate goals. You have to create a climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage in a certain time frame. Your plans can include setting up alternative energy sources, reducing human consumption etc.

Web Earth Online

How would you cope in the environment of today if you were an animal or bird? Use this multi player online game to find out. Pitted against you will be species which may be friend or foe. Then you have the natural world to deal with too.

You will get to play through the entire life cycle of the animal you choose. Like all animal species, the objective is to survive and thrive. The basic game is free.

Earth Day Games

Earth Day has passed us by, but the games that were set up to promote it endure on many sites around the web. Kaboose.com has a small collection of simple Flash based environmental games like Clean Up Your World. The games are simple enough to introduce the youngest of the lot to the need for environmental cleanliness.

Recycle City

Continuing in the same spirit of cleaning up the litter around you, head for Recycle City. In the Dumptown Game, as the Dumptown Manager, you can create your own scavenger hunt and learn what it takes to help protect the environment.

World Wildlife Fund

As WWF says, these are games with a message. Nine games listed on one page and a tenth one on Facebook (that’s about looking after a polar bear). My picks are the blaster games. For instance, in the Toxic Blaster, I am piloting a jet-sub into the insides of a polar bear, a whale, and a man to blast away toxic molecules. But be warned, those contaminants can destroy the sub too.

Ecokids

The Canadian website Ecokids has quite a list of little environmental games arranged in categories like Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, Water, Waste, Land Use etc. The learning based environmental games are also bunched up according to age levels. For instance, in The Journey of a Wildlife Photographer you have to become a wildlife photographer and check out how animals and birds have adapted to the environment.

The Adventures Of Vermi The Worm

Go along with Vermi the worm and learn the basics of vermicomposting and its benefits, plus other waste management strategies like recycling. Along the way you will meet other characters like Bubba the Worm, Hugh Hammer, Sunny Flower, and Trashcan. While learning you have to help your buddies too as they reduce, reuse, recycle what’s waste.

Environmental Education On The Internet

This huge list of environmental games and related learning activities is thanks to the North American Association For Environmental Education. From the Second Life based NOAA Virtual World to the educational Astro-Venture from NASA where you have to design a habitable planet, the web resources cover quite a lot of environmental ground.

Thanks to online games of various hues, learning need not be a chore anymore. So finish all that homework fast. There’s lot of interactive fun to be had on the World Wide Web. And tell us if you have a favorite environmental game that you would like the world to know about.

Image Credit : woodleywonderworks

Today’s set of tools will make anyone’s learning super-engaging: whether you have (or plan) kids or you want to earn some cash by tutoring someone, the tools will come in handy.

ProProfs, the site we have mentioned a couple of times on MUO already, has a variety of free educational apps and games which need a closer look. The toolset has been featured on various powerful educational portals including TheJournal, Assett and Profy.

Unlike our previous reviews of the tool features, this one will focus on the educational value of the free web apps.

1. Quizzes

Apart from creating fun personality quizzes to engage and entertain your blog visitors, ProProfs Quiz Maker can be used for educational purposes.

Idea: The tool is perfect for assessing people’s knowledge of the topic as well as identifying “weak” areas: where most people tend to err.

Sample educational quizzes:

• Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
• Can you identify these historical landmarks?
• SAT Improving Sentences Quiz I

Creating a quiz might take you a bit of time (simply because you need to provide questions and several answers for each). So before creating the quiz using the tool I usually draft the quiz structure in Excel and once I have all the info, complete the form.

The very first step is to provide the quiz name, description and your questions (with answers). The quiz allows to choose between various types of question types: “Multiple answers”, “True/False”, “Fill in the blanks”, “Essay type”. The best thing is that you can make each question interactive by adding images or embedding video:

Then you will need to set the result type; the tool supports:

• Pass / fail result;
• Letter grading;
• Good / excellent result;
• Customized result (where you provide the scoring system of your own).

Here’s an example of letter grading settings (you can also set the max time and configure the certificate settings):

2. Flashcards

Flashcards section allows to create your own flashcards as well as browse through already created ones in various categories.

Idea: Easily summarize and organize complex material to let kids always have it by hand (print and download your flashcards for further reference).

Sample flashcard: French verbs

Creating a flashcard is fun: you can use images, formatting and various colors to visualize your data sets more effectively:

3. Brain Games

Besides interactive fun games, ProProf’s Brain Games section allows to create several types of fun word games including:

• Word search game;
• Crossword game;
• Word scrample game.

Idea: You can get your kids easier remember the spelling of new words by creating a crossword and letting them take it several times in a row. The crossword will vary the words each time it’s reloaded.

Sample crossword: Superheroes

Creating a word game really takes seconds. All you need is the concept and words in mind. After that it’s just the matter of copy-pasting: the software will create a puzzle of that itself:

And here’s our cute little MUO-authors crossword which took us two seconds to create:

Do you think tools like that could make learning (as well as teaching) much more fun (and thus much more enjoyable and effective)?

Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve covered a variety of choices for when you want to find resources for online learning, like Einztein online study courses, Justin’s review of free online college courseware, and of course there’s FreeVideoLectures, where you can watch videos on over 700 course topics.

However, there is one online learning resource that goes beyond all of those sites, by providing not only online course materials – such as lessons and tests – but you’ll also find an entire community of like-minded students with a thirst for knowledge. Nuvvo is an online learning community that offers all of those things and more. Whether you’re a student or a teacher, you’ll want to check out this creative learning resource.

Creating Your Account & Profile

Signing up at Nuvvo is free and easy to set up – all you need is a valid email address. Nuvvo combines online learning tools with the look and feel of a social network, however it is primarily for creating online learning areas where students can read lessons, take tests, and participate in discussions about the subject with other students.

You can judge the credibility of an instructor, or the activity level of a student, by their “authority” level. Authority is broken down into both teaching activity and student activity. To improve your curriculum and teaching authority, simply get active in the many areas of Nuvvo.

Finding Topics To Learn About

Just about everyone has a subject that they are very interested in learning more about. For me, those include blogging and web design, computer programming and investigative journalism. Brainstorm the subjects that you’d love to learn more about, and start typing in keywords into the search bar on Nuvvo’s “Learning Communities” page.

I’ve always wanted to learn more about the Java programming language, so I decided to searching for Java learning communities, and discovered several. The “Java/J2EE Development” learning community had 70 other students participating and looked pretty interesting.

Joining a learning community, you’ll discover lessons, tests, trivia, discussions and more. These communities are created and run by experts who love the topic so much that they offer free lessons and other learning tools, so you’ll discover that there’s a lot of very useful information embedded into each of the lessons. For example, the lesson on basic Java concepts was detailed and provided a decent background on Java basics.

Once you’re done studying the lessons, you can take the tests that instructors created for the material, try your hand at answering some of the trivia questions, or discuss specific questions you have with the instructor and students in the discussion areas.

Becoming A Nuvvo Instructor

Now, if you have an area of expertise that you’d love to share with interested students, you can create your own learning community. I decided that I would create a learning community about how to blog, so clicking on “Start a Community” in your workspace takes you to the area where you can set up your learning area and associated subdomain.

Creating your first lesson is as simple as using any WYSIWYG web page editor or blogging platform. You can format headers, add bullet lists, include pictures and more.

When you create a lesson, you have the option to offer it as part of your overall learning community, or you can attach it to a “course” as part of specific courseware. You can do this in the right menu bar by selecting to publish the lesson privately in your courses.

Creating a course is an excellent way to offer a targeted lesson plan following a structured outline of lessons. If you plan to put a lot of effort in creating high-value courseware with instruction videos, lessons and more – you can opt to charge students for the course. Students pay (and you receive payment) through Paypal. Or, if you simply want to include free courses as part of your Nuvvo learning community, then leave the cost at $0 and select the community you want to attach it to under “Course Material.”

In the course area that students gain access to, they will see you as the instructor, as well as the curriculum you’ve created and a discussion area for students to ask you (or eachother) questions. Courses are similar to learning communities, except they are more focused on a particular sub-topic, and they include an outlined curriculum students can follow to learn new skills.

Whether you decide that you want to be a teacher or a student, Nuvvo is a very cool online community devoted to people with an interest in education and a thirst for information and new skills.

Have you ever tried taking lessons on Nuvvo? Do you know of similar online learning communities? Share your insight in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Harrison Keely

In the Web 2.0 age, is it any wonder that they are online and browser based education tools? Now, a lot of households have computers.

So, it would be easier to head towards a website rather than a children’s bookstore.

Parents and guardians will appreciate the unique challenges that crop up when children start with their pre-schooling. I am getting some frontline action with my 3 year old niece. What probably helps today’s parents is the relative precociousness of the “˜digital age’ generation. They seem to be naturally drawn towards anything that’s interactive.

That’s the thought that bolstered me as I kept the books aside and headed to the Internet to find alphabet learning games for kids online. My search was for learning websites that could give some pre-schooling interactively. Children might have some fun while learning. With these ten websites, maybe we can have fun teaching them too.

Simple ABC’s

Start off with a very simple way to learn ABC’s, but in a colorful manner. Learn Your ABC’s from Fisher-Price and its online games section is a Flash based tool. The game introduces the child to the letters, one at a time. The letters change in different colors and all the child has to do is to press any key on the keyboard.

Help The Monkey

Alphabet Antics is about a monkey who need some help with coconuts. The alphabet game has three levels. The game is about a monkey who says the letters out aloud and the child has to click on the right coconut to help the monkey clamber up the tree. With each wrong answer, the monkey comes down a notch or two. Also, choose between capitals and small letters to make the child recognize both.

Pick One From The Floor

Poisson Rouge has a bunch of games that appeal to kids between the ages of 3 to 7. On the colorful homepage, you get to see a lot of objects without any information on how to use them. That’s a deliberate design to encourage discovery by kids.

As the user guide explains, kids hardly read (and you can’t expect a 3 year old to read!). So you get games which teach you about letters and numbers starting from the real simple ones to others that teach more fundamental things like reading time or guessing colors. The site is completely ad free and supports French and English.

Haunted Alphabets

The Funschool game takes the child into a haunted house where letters are hidden. With the ghostly music playing in the background, the learning task is about discovering the hidden letters. Find out if the scary stuff helps kids remember letters more effectively.

Whacking Pesky Moles To Friendly Bees & Frogs

PlayKidsGames has a lineup of alphabet games which can thoroughly make your kid an alphabet whiz. The child can hammer the annoying moles in alphabetical order. He can help a little ugly frog lap up some letters for lunch. He can also help the bees build their hive of letters. And lots more. Most of these are Flash games.

From Matching Alphabets To Connecting Number Dots

ABCya! is another site with a lineup of Kindergarten children’s computer games and activities. Alphabet matching games and connecting numbered dots should be great primers for a young child. You need not delete the bookmark, as the child can graduate to games like Make a Pizza and other puzzles. The site also features a few storybook based learning games.

Catch The Train

LearningPlanet has two nice games which could be good starters for number recognition. You can let your child catch the number train and then count a few chickens.

Learning At The BBC

Picking the BBC for pre-school learning sounds strange, but the BBC happens to be a great education resource too. Bernie and Bill, the two characters, are there to help you out with a few number games for ages between the ages of 4-11. I went back to Snakes and Ladders after a long time.

Get The Numbers At Sesame Street

You can find Sesame Street on television. And it’s there with a host of learning activities on the web too. You can watch Mumford the Magician pull out numbers from his hat or any of the other four that are there in their Numbers/Counting category.

Finally, Chill Out At This Pretty Place

Orsinal is almost picture perfect. Although it’s not about letters or digits, it could be about developing motor skills as the games are quite rapid. The games should be simple fun for children. What’s really eye-catching are the graphics. Everyone deserves a break after some hard studying.

These ten sites with alphabet learning games for kids online could provide the right spark to take your kids from pre-schoolers to scholars. Okay, that’s a bit early to predict, but these sites are all about learning activities. Though, no one would advice that a child spends too much time in front of the computer; the PC has a becoming a great education tool for all ages. The only thing that we need to worry about is chocolate smudges on the screen.

Let us know about your favorite sites for some home schooling.

Image Credit: listentoreason