There are plenty of flash-card applications around, including the amazing AnkiDroid. But while AnkiDroid is an incredible app, it’s not a game. I’m a big believer in education through games. I think learning should be as fun and engaging as possible, and that the more interested you are, the better your retention will be.  So, if you like your study mixed in with a bit of fun, keep reading for two fine picks from the Market.

Word Jam

Word Jam is composed of several different games, all aimed at helping you learn and retain new words. Above you can see “recall words”, a mode that gives you a word and has you guess the meaning. And here’s Match Words, where you stretch lines between words and their meanings:

There’s also a Hangman game:

If you don’t know what the word is, you can give up and reveal it (or just “die”, in which case the game would show you the word).

Another game mode worthy of mention is the crossword puzzle:

There are better crossword puzzle games for Android (which I may cover in a separate post), but Word Jam is not just a crossword puzzle, and can engage you in six different ways. Apart from the four we’ve seen, the game also offers Word Jumble and Word Search.

In Word Jumble, you must reorder letters to create a word. Word Search provides you with a collection of related words around a theme (“Groupings of people or objects”), and then you must find those words on a board. All in all, a fun collection of games with a simple aesthetic.

Wordaholic

Wordaholic is actually two different games: Wordaholic – Free Word Find and Wordaholic – Free Word Search. Pretty confusing (why not make it into one app?) but still fun. Both games let you play a hexagonal board full of random letters, where your goal is to create words. The “Find” variant gives you just the board, and you find any words you already know. The “Search” variant, more relevant to this post, is more like a crossword puzzle. That’s the one you see in the screenshot above. The game gives you a little riddle, and you need to figure out the word first, and then find that word on the board. Pretty challenging, because it involves switching between two different modes of thinking every turn.

Some of the questions are very tricky, such as “???? is an atomic element with the atomic number 10”. This is where the Hint button comes in handy: Tap it once for a tiny hint (“Four letters, starts with N”). If you still can’t figure out what it is, tap it again and the game will reveal the word (“The word is NEON”).

The game also offers an Easy mode, in which the words are already listed at the bottom of the screen and you just need to find them. This mode is still useful for learning new words, because you can tap a word to get its definition within the game:

Quite a lovely game for picking up some new words. I like the form factor. Hexagons always remind me of strategy games.

Your Own Favorites?

When it comes to word games on Android, the most popular ones are Words with Friends and Wordfeud. That’s why I didn’t include them in the post (I did include them in the Best of Android list). But do you play anything else that has to do with words? If so, do share in the comments.

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Online dictionaries aren’t only about words and their meanings. They also bring in other cool features which make for a fun learning experience for both children and adults alike.

Dictionary.com and its resources make it almost a portal that takes you on a journey of word discoveries. Word has it that it is probably the most frequented of online dictionary and reference sources on the web. Why not – after all you can do much more than merely look up a word here. Try these 8 for starters.

The Hot Word

Words are never one-dimensional. There’s always an interesting story behind them or you can create an interesting one around a word. The Hot Word shows just how interesting the English language is. The blog not only dives into the origins of words, but also discusses their present context. Even a casual read through the blog gives you interesting tidbits like the language that’s only spoken in one tiny part of Portugal.

Words!

This is a weekly compilation that picks up interesting definitions from areas of medicine, gardening, cooking, and more. Browsing through them takes you to entire word lists and in turn to their meanings. The compilation perks up interest because you might thing that you know all about a specific area, but the word list tells you that you still have some learning to do. Dictionary.com comes with comprehensive listings on medical terms, abbreviations, cultural words, idioms etc.

Solve a Daily Crossword

I can’t get to the Times crossword or solve it, but I do try my word associations and recall with the Daily Crossword here. You can time yourself, pause and save your progress, and even print the puzzles though it’s much better to solve them online. The game also gives you letter and word hints if you are stuck at a square.

By the way, if you are attempting to solve the Times crossword, you can take the help of the Crossword Solver here at Dictionary.com. Just a helpful tool to bookmark if you are into crosswords.

Fun ‘n Free Games!

The fun doesn’t end at crosswords but continues with the cool word based puzzles and games in the Games section. Making words starting with a provided letter sounds lame, but some interesting rules make the game a bit more challenging. There are more ‘complicated’ games like Word Kingdom which is like playing Age of Empires with words. Word Games has a lineup of nice games that should set up someone who is trying to get better with English.

Become a Word Millionaire with Word Dynamo

Word Dynamo is a beta feature but it already looks useful as an educational tool. Word Dynamo is about learning words in an engaging way. Word challenges are arranged according to grade levels and topics. You have to progress up by unlocking the levels as in any game. Quizzes, word lists, and word games make up Word Dynamo. You can also learn a bit about French, Spanish and Latin.

Which Word Is The World Searching For Today?

A small section that is tucked away near the foot of the homepage shows what the world is searching for on Dictionary.com. Capturing trending words from the whole web would be too much to ask for, so let’s do with what the nearly 50 million visitors landing here are making popular each day. You can look at Popular Searches, Words in the News, and Where Is It.

Rave on Quotes

There are many places you can go in your search for quotable quotes. Dictionary.com happens to be one more. There’s the Quote of The Day right on the homepage and more quotes beyond that. You can cite the quotes or choose to embed them in your blog.

Simply Translate

Last but not the least; Dictionary.com includes a very handy translation engine that can handle 50 languages. The translation is limited to 100 characters, but that should suffice for short bursts. One limitation is that the translator does not detect the language when you insert it into the field.

Dictionary.com goes beyond being a simple online dictionary. What sets it apart are these add-on learning features which make this a complete ‘word portal’. Which is your favorite online dictionary? If it’s this one, tell us what appeals to you here when you come looking for some meaning.

Free website Vocabulary.com says it can help you improve your vocabulary by figuring out which words you don’t know, and then teaching you only those (without spending time on stuff you already know).

The first thing you’ll see on the site is a multiple-choice test aimed to assess your current vocabulary. Here’s what happens once you click one of the answers for a question:

That’s just the first question. Now let’s see what happens when you pick a wrong answer:

And let’s get the second one wrong, too:

And now let’s be totally dumb and get even the third shot wrong:

Okay, that doesn’t leave many options. Let’s pick the last one remaining:

“You’re a genius!“…..uh, right. False flattery aside, the site now provides you with a complete definition for the correct word, including a nice derivation (word origin). You can see it to the right of the main interface in the screenshot above. It comes from the dictionary integrated into the website, which we’ll get to in a moment. Once you’re done reading, click the “Next Question” button to continue the assessment.

There are also other types of questions:

As you can see, the question above doesn’t make you complete a sentence, but just pick the correct definition for a word.

Once you finish the first round, the site suggests you log in, either using Facebook or by creating a new account on the site itself:

Since I don’t have a Facebook account, I created an account on the site itself.

Some of the answers to the test can be a bit weird, because they use synonyms. Here’s an example for a particularly odd one:

While I agree “luxuriant” doesn’t mean “enhanced”, it certainly doesn’t mean “riotous” under any normal definition of the word. Sure, there is a definition that says “growing in extreme abundance“, but that’s a very rare definition of the word. So effectively, the game is asking you to define one rare word with another rare word, and they don’t exactly match in shades of meaning. Fortunately, most of the definitions do make sense.

Since we’re already speaking of definitions, now would be a good time to look at the integrated dictionary. Let’s look up the applicable definition for riotous:

Some of the definitions in the dictionary are very short. Personally, I prefer more comprehensive definitions, but these snappy and short definitions might help some people memorize the words better. There’s also an interesting usage meter and examples:

So you can see related words from the same family (not synonyms, though – those are shown under each definition), along with their frequency. Note that the meter isn’t perfect: In the screenshot above, “Riotous” appears twice for some reason.

Also, not all definitions are so short. Here’s an absolutely brilliant definition for “toady”, including a memorable word history:

I think that’s just fantastic, and many of the difficult words do have such in-depth definitions, which are written in a fun, easy-to-understand style.

Once you continue with the challenge a bit more, you’ll get to check out your progress:

There are also achievements you can unlock:

As you continue answering questions, pretty soon you start getting “review” questions with words you’ve already seen (and gave wrong answers for):

As you can see, each review question is worth only 75 points, as opposed to 100 points for an “assessment” question (containing a word the game hasn’t asked you about yet).

That’s pretty much all there is to it. The site provides you with a lovely opportunity to learn new words, both by looking up words you already know you want to learn (in the dictionary) and by randomly stumbling upon new words in the questions.  The only thing I would improve is the quality of some of the questions – I feel they could sometimes stand a bit more depth. Still, I feel it really manages to make learning into a game.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Luckily, in this digital age, everybody can turn to their computer for help. There are many applications dedicated to improve your study skills, as well as the overall school experience.

And for those Mac-user students out there, here are five free tools to help you survive, and win.

1. Schoolhouse

The first thing to do to achieve a better academic grades is to organize everything into one easy-to-observe placeholder. Schoolhouse, which dubs itself as “The Homework Manager for The Mac“, is built to do just that. Developed by a student who still lives the life, you can expect this application to be as useful as it should be.

You start the application by creating a new term; give name to it and set the time range of the term.

Then you gradually add your assignments, tasks and notes to it. You could choose to view all the items by list, week or month, iCal style.

Schoolhouse also has the ability to link documents and media to the assignments for quick reference, preview all your grades during the term to help you monitor your performance, and automatically publish the assignments to the web so that anyone can subscribe to them.

If it sounds confusing, don’t worry — to help users getting started, this app come with a short PDF manual.

Schoolhouse is like a GTD tool for students, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be useful for non-student users. I find that this app is very useful to manage my writing projects.

2. Genius

One of the biggest traumas of school that still carved in my memory was studying for tests. I was always a “math kind of guy”, so memorizing too many facts and dates always scared me.

I wish I’ve encountered Genius back then. This small app will help anybody with their study skills, particularly how to memorize things easier.

You start with a new blank window. Then, by clicking the ‘+’ button, you can add a question. Insert the answer next to the question.

After all of the questions and answers have been inserted into the Genius window, you can save the window and start the learning process. Click the green “Study” button, and Genius will pop up a window with a question and the answer while dimming out the other parts of the screen. It will ask you to memorize them.

Genius then will ask the question again and you have to write the answer. It will alternate between new facts and questions. Genius organizes your information and carefully chooses questions using an intelligent “spaced repetition” method that’s based on your past performance.

You can use Genius to study foreign language phrases, vocabulary words, historical events, legal definitions, formal speeches, marketing points, religious texts, or anything else you need to memorize.

3. ProVoc

It’s always nice to learn a new language. But there’s one obstacle that usually stops almost everybody from learning any language: memorizing the vocabularies.

ProVoc is a free vocabulary trainer that makes learning a language easy. Just download the application and the vocabulary pack(s), and you are ready to go. There is a mountain of vocabulary packs available ranging from German to Dutch to Polish to Russian to Arabic.

ProVoc has the ability to export to an iPod, so you can learn while on the road. You can also print flash cards, use the free Dashboard Widget, and listen to the audio pronunciation of the words.

4. Buddi

The word “student” is often being related to “starving”. This might be an indication that most students are not good in managing their finance.

To help with the monetary side, students (and everybody else) can rely on Buddi, a simple and free, open-source money management application. Buddi is Java-based so it can run on any operating system with Java environment installed.

With the financial problem tackled with the help of Buddi, students can focus more on the study.

5. Carbon Copy Cloner

“The dog ate my paper” is a classic excuse for not turning in your assignment. Of course, no teacher will buy it anymore. The modern alternative is “My hard drive crashed and ate everything inside, including my assignment.” But that is also not selling well anymore because we have backup utilities.

Carbon Copy Cloner is one free and powerful alternatives. You can “clone” everything to an external hard drive.

6. Bonus tool: G.ho.st

G.ho.st is one of the online alternatives for backing up your files. You will get 15 Gigabytes of free online storage on the system (and another additional 5GB for every friend who signs up from your invitation).

But G.ho.st is not just about file backup. It is a complete virtual, online operating system. So you will also get an office suite, games, browser and everything that you can expect from an operating system. Why will you need this? Simple — you can access your work and files from any place on earth with just a computer and an internet connection.

One of the new features that I like most is the ability to “side-load” files from web location directly to G.ho.st online storage, and the ability to share them with your friends.

The above link will direct you to the G.ho.st page with me as the referrer. If you don’t feel like donating an additional 5 Gigabytes to me, you can go directly to their site.

7. Everything else

There is still so many more applications that can help students to improve study skills and work better. MakeUseOf Directory profiled over 100 tools, covering everything from online dictionaries, chart makers and flash cards to sites for ordering food from take-aways located near the campus.

Don’t forget to check out articles about online tools for students such as:

- 10 Online Learning Tools
- 10 Web Tools To Save Your Butt In School
- Collaboration Suite For Teachers and Students

We’ve also discussed other free file hosts for free online storage services that can be used by students to keep and share their files.

If you could add more ideas to this short list, be sure to write it down using the comment below.

Then, why do you keep repeating the same words over and over again?

Well, lets put an end to that! Maybe we can help you improve your writing skills or at the very least show you a great new tool. A new website called www.VocabGrabber.com is a great tool to help you see the errors of your ways in writing. This fresh, new service allows you to enter a block of text into a box and hit a button that says Grab Vocabulary.

VocabGrabber analyzes your text and spits back a word cloud of terms used. From there, you can click on words and see synonyms as well as how many times you used a certain word.

You can click on words to see their relationship to other words. It is a great tool for any writer ““ even if you are a seasoned paid writer!

Check out the interface and we will walk you through how it can help you.

I grabbed the latest post from my personal website and pasted it into the box.

I hit the big green button and VocabGrabber instantly analyzed my text. It instantly (or at least it felt instant) spat back this word cloud.

The words that appear the most frequent have the largest font. From here, I changed the view into a list. This is easier for me to use. Below, you can see the button I clicked to show the list view ““ It is circled obnoxiously in red.

Ah now, I can see that the word backup was used 36 whopping times in that article. Maybe I should find another word to replace it with? VocabGrabber doesn’t tell you that but it will help you if that is what you decide. On the right hand side of the screen, you will see a chart with your word and other similar words around it. You will see a few definitions for your word as well as have the ability to click on a word and have it open in a seperate mini-java Visual Theasaurus. This is not a free product but they do let you try it out.

In this instance, the only relevant synonym is Computer Backup and well, that just doesn’t sound so much better. Let’s try another word. I decided to pick “label” as you can see below:

So in this case, it suggested several words that can replace the word “label” ““ mark, tag or description. This is very handy and I would have killed for this in high school! Do you have some type of free writing tool that you would like to share with us? Then do so in the comments!