#5 Tool of Learning: Quizlet
Description of the tool
Quizlet is a free website which enables teachers and students to create digital flashcards. That’s not where the magic stops, however. Quizlet can automatically generate interactive games and even tests of the material you enter into it. Five or ten minutes of typing (or pasting!) up front can yield literally hours’ worth of automatically-assessed activities inside and outside of the classroom, on computers, smartphones, tablets, and even pencil-and-paper printed exercises.
Features of the tool
Teacher Quick-start Guide: Quizlet Live
Quizlet Live is an engaging in-class game where students work in teams to correctly match terms and definitions. The first team to match all terms and definitions correctly in a row wins the game. Quizlet Live is free to all teachers who have a Quizlet account. While upgraded Quizlet Teachers have access to additional Quizlet Live features and customization options, any teacher with a free Quizlet account can start a game of Quizlet Live for their students.
Quizlet Learn
Quizlet Learn is powered by the Learning Assistant Platform, which uses machine learning to process data from millions of anonymous study sessions and then combines that data with proven techniques based on cognitive science. This powerful platform is adapted to how people actually learn and drives studying more effectively and efficiently. It focuses on the material students truly need to study while making it fun at the same time.
Quizlet Diagrams
Diagrams are helpful for studying content that requires maps, charts, or images. You can find and study interactive diagrams on a variety of topics at Quizlet.com and in the Quizlet app. A diagram in Quizlet asks a learner to match terms with hotspots on an image. You can study diagrams in Learn or Match mode. The best part about Quizlet Diagrams is that you can create your own for free. It’s as simple as uploading and tagging an image.
Quizlet Flashcards
Creating your own set of flashcards is simple with the flashcard maker. Add a term and definition and your first card is complete! You can easily add an image from the library to your definition if you’re studying something like art history, a foreign language, or chemistry, where images are helpful. Once your set is complete, you can study it, edit it, or share with friends.
Benefit of the tool in teaching
· Quizlet reads the word and definition to the student out loud, enhancing students’ grasp of pronunciation.
Quizlet has text-to-speech capabilities in eighteen languages as of 2013, and more are on the way. Granted, the pronunciation is not always perfect or unambiguous—for example, some English words like “conduct” have both noun and verb forms which are pronounced with different syllable stress patterns, and Quizlet would haven’t no way of knowing which part of speech to pronounce unless the word is used in a sentence—but as a general studying aid, this feature is invaluable.
· Quizlet provides targeted spelling feedback.
In the “Speller” studying mode, students hear the target word spoken out loud and see a written definition on the screen. Their task is to type the target word using its correct spelling. If they make mistakes, Quizlet visually corrects the error, re-reads the word, and reads the spelling one letter at a time. For students who particularly struggle with spelling, such as Arabic-speaking learners of English, this specific, multi-modal feedback is a wonderful resource.
· You can create a “class” for your students on Quizlet and even track their progress if you choose to do so.
Features for creating a class and tracking student progress do exist for teachers who wish to integrate Quizlet more fully into their curriculum.
Benefit of the tool in learning
· Quizlet provides adaptive training to help students focus on the items most difficult for them.
In the “Learn” mode, Quizlet test student one item at a time. The items a student performs more poorly on are brought back for further review to help students focus their efforts on items which they have not yet learned or which are more difficult to remember. This adaptive training method increases the efficiency and effectiveness of students’ studying.
· Your students can export or mix and match different card sets together to create a personalized deck.
One of the most underappreciated features of Quizlet is that anyone can create a hybrid deck of cards by copying other people’s decks, combining multiple different sets together, throwing out unwanted cards, and perhaps adding new extra cards manually. Promote your students’ agency and help them become responsible for their own learning by encouraging them to customize their studying materials using these versatile mix-and-match material aggregation features.
Guidelines on getting started on the tool
With Quizlet you can make your very own sets of online flashcards. Use these sets in a variety of ways to quiz yourself on any number of topics. Feel free to utilize the millions of sets already produced by other members of the site or to create your own with pictures and words that are specific to your needs. If you want to know how to make your very own set in Quizlet, please, continue reading.
1. Go to quizlet.com and login to your account. If you don't already have an account, make sure to make one or you won't be able to save your settings once you make it. To sign up hit the button in the top right-hand corner.
2. Once you get to the Quizlet homepage hit the big green + Create button in the top left corner of the page.
3. Type in a title and subject that correspond to the set you are about to create. If you want other people to use your set to create a title with keywords that will be helpful when they are searching for the topic. Feel free to add what you like to the description box.
Click "+ Import from Word, Excel, Google Docs, etc." to upload other documents.
4. Adjust the "visible to" and "editors" tabs. Decide who you would like to be able to use and edit your flashcards. You have to be a member of a group for a set to be visible to that certain group.
5. Fill in the appropriate information. There are two sides to every flash card, the term, and the definition.
- If you are making foreign language notecards, make sure to choose the correct language for each side of the notecard. This helpful because accents that correspond to the language will appear on the side of your screen to be used if needed.
- If you are making flashcards of terms and their definitions you can use the "auto-define" option. When you begin typing a word into the box for the first side of the notecard, an "auto-define" button pops up directly under where you are typing. If you decide to use this feature, it provides definitions for your word from an online dictionary or other users’ sets. If you like one of the definitions, select it.
- If you want to add an image to one side of your flashcards it is very easy to do. Once you click the "add image" button you can either upload an image you already found or search for an image on Flickr through Quizlet. The only problem is if you want to upload your own image you have to be a member of Quizlet Plus and pay $15 a year. But don't fret, using Flickr images is free.
6. Once you have perfected your set, press the "Create" button at the top of the page. It is also located at the bottom. Give yourself a nice pat on the back. It might have taken a lot longer than you expected, but your Quizlet set is done. Don't worry, you still have plenty of time to study away for that test tomorrow!.
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