Learning with FlashKard LG #98

...making Linux just a little more fun!

Learning with FlashKard
By Hal Stanton

Learning with FlashKard

Flashkard is, as you might expect, a program that generates flashcards. In other words, cards where the front and back are related in some way. These can be used for word definitions (the word on one side, the definition on the other), foreign language learning (a word or phrase in one language on one side and the translation on the other) or even for creating games.

Creating these cards is self-explanatory. In data entry mode, you see the list of the current cards, Front and Back boxes to enter the contents of a new card and buttons to add, delete and update a card. Using the file menu you can select an existing file to update, create a new file and save your changes. You don't have to be concerned about what is the front and what is the back of the card as there is a reverse button for use when you are displaying them.

There are three ways to display a set of cards: flash cards, random order quiz and ordered quiz. In the flashcard mode, one side of the card is displayed and you view the other side by clicking on a tab. A Next Card button allows you to move on and a bar at the bottom of the window shows you the percentage of the cards you have viewed.

In the quiz modes, one side of the card is shown and you type in the answer (other side of the card) in a box. Pressing the Check button will tell you if you guessed correctly and update your score. If you give up, you can press the Show Answer button. When all the cards have been displayed, your score is shown and you can start over.

This program isn't very sophisticated but this could be an asset. My kids could easily use this to create tests. It is fun and easy to use so I feel it has a lot of potential for unsupervised learning.

One thing that would have been nice would be the ability to print out cards. I was somewhat curious and looked at the data files that flashkard creates. The file extension is kvtml. I don't know what this is but it looks similar to HTML. For example, here is what I found in my file color.kvtml after creating three cards.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE kvtml SYSTEM "kvoctrain.dtd">
<kvtml>
 <e>
  <o>black</o>
  <t>white</t>
 </e>
 <e>
  <o>red</o>
  <t>green</t>
 </e>
 <e>
  <o>yellow</o>
  <t>blue</t>
 </e>
</kvtml>

Based on what I see here it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to read this information and print it out on cards. It is certainly beyond my ability right now but it does give me hope it will happen.

Hal Stanton was a Windows user for too many years. Now I can honestly say that Linux is a lot more fun.

[BIO] None provided.