Session 3 - Benefits of Using Tablet Flash Card – YoungJoo Jeong

Studying is frustrating! – reinforcement is important, but time consuming.

Problems with physicals flash cards for learning knowledge (index cards)

• Hassel to create cards, store them
• Loosing cards
• Is not easy to share cards (loose your cards to “friends”)
• Manual sorting of cards
• Can’t easily have statistical data on learning

One solution to this is the Tablet PC Flash Card application – being developed by Carnegie Mellon University.  You can download this from the website: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ab/TRETC08/FlashCards/using%20flashcards.pdf  I did and it works well – just make sure you follow the instructions and place in on C:\ not on the desktop – I ignored that and it broke!  But very quick to put in the right place and it works fine.

The application was demoed – it looks very nice – has self assessment, sharing, all built in.  Thumbnails of cards are there to see. The application has a smart testing algorithm, so less familiar cards are more likely to be asked again to improve learning. 

The Tablet PC Flash card was part of a project at the uni where the students go to real classes and solve a problem they see in class, creating a software application to solve the problem.  What a nice way to develop a solution needed!  This is research based and continuing to be researched. 

The collaborative learning is also really nice, although they acknowledge the “freerider” issue where some students only take, not give…  Not so good!  However, the benefits outweigh the issues, as the sharing of multiple “experts” create more targeted cards covering multiple area.

Ultimately the goal is to create a collaborative online sharing way of using the applications.

The study looked at whether the students learned more by sharing cards or not.  The basic method was students creating flash cards on material that they either a) knew or b) did not know.  These decks were then shared between students in a specific design to check how well the material was covered.  The sharing method was using Google Groups to post the files.

The results showed for review decks that if a student used only their own deck, on 30% of the course material was covered.  Two students was 46%, three students 66%, four students 76%.

For new material, an individual covered 53% of the course, with four users 100% material.

When the reasons for this was examined, 50% of students only created material for the material they thought they would get correct; the other 50% created cards on novel or less understood material. 

This has implications for us teaching students how to study – we need to ensure that they study material they don’t know!  Sharing could be a good strategy to ensure that collaboratively students learn and study more efficiently.  This merging/sharing in an virtual setting is enhanced through tools such as the Tablet PC and online resources/sharing.

Both the teacher and the students found the use of the Tablet PC Flash cards increased engagement, interactivity and collaboration in the class, with increased knowledge results on assessment.

Sidenote: There is a Tablet PC Flash card software available on the staff Tablet PC’s at BBC right now – this is under ALL PROGRAMS under the Microsoft Experience or Microsoft Tablet Education packs.