Quizlet--the App

This post is primarily for users of the iPads, OR those who have special ed. students in their rooms and COULD use the iPads.

 For a number of years I’ve been aware of a website called Quizlet.  At  its heart, Quizlet is an interactive, online flashcard site.  Anyone, teacher or student, can enter a set of words and definitions.  Once created this set can be made public, so that anyone can search or browse through the flash cards at Quizlet and drill themselves on those terms using either flash cards, a matching game where one slides the terms and definitions together, a “learning” drill where the term is typed in when the definition is presented, or a “space race” where you type in the term as the definition flies by. 

 As I say, I’ve been aware of that for some years.  Recently I became aware that there is an app for Quizlet.  When I walked past a special ed. room at AES last week I noted two students using the iPads.  The next evening I had a special ed. teacher in my TSIP class, and it hit me….what a perfect app for our special education teachers.  It seems to me that a lot of the job of being a special ed. teacher is to help students remember terms —and the more hands on techniques that can be employed, the better. 

 So, I installed and opened the Quizlet app.  It doesn’t yet do some of the things that can be done on the website—for example you can’t create flashcards.  But, you can search for and go to all the sets made by another teacher.  A teacher at KES put my username in the search window and turned up all the sets of flash cards I’ve created and made public (you have four options as to whom may view your sets).   The app won’t do as much as the website, but the up side of that is that the app has a nice clean look, you get three simple choices—flash cards, matching, or short answer.

 I’ve shown this app to two teachers in the past two days and as a result of their feedback I want to add two additional notes.  I knew that the audio feature was nice, but this was driven home by the KES teacher.  Just like the website, the Quizlet app allows the student to turn on the audio—and let the iPad read them the terms and definitions.  That, she pointed out, is particularly useful for learning sight words.  Today, a teacher here at AES especially liked the ability to print out the terms in sized for flashcards—thus making them available both online and  in hard copy.

 Imagine, if teachers throughout the county all made sets of cards—Mr. X. does third grade social studies, Mrs. Y does third grade science, Miss Z does third grade language arts, and they share their usernames so that they effectively pool their work. Another idea is to name flashcard sets with “SOL” in the title, along with the number and bullet – this makes the set easily searchable. How about going back to the email telling you about this post and contacting other teachers from around the county???