Zentraler Informatikdienst

Using flashcards

For:  students

This user guide helps students use a flashcard deck created by the teacher in a Moodle course for learning.

Requirement

The teacher must integrate the flashcards activity into the Moodle course.

What is the flashcard activity?

The flashcards activity is a learning aid in Moodle:

  1. Virtual flashcards contain questions. Students answer these questions for themselves.
  2. Students can then view the respective (sample) solution and decide for themselves whether the answer was correct or incorrect.
  3. The flashcard deck contains a total of 5 different boxes, into which correctly answered cards are moved step by step. Several learning rounds are therefore necessary until all the cards are sorted into the last box.

Creating/customizing flashcards

1. Selecting flashcards

As a student, you can select the questions or flashcards that you would like to learn.

To do this click Create/customize my flashcards.

  1. Tick the desired flashcards in the Flashcards collection.
  2. Click the Add flashcard(s) button.
  3. The added cards are now automatically in the first learning box.
  4. Click the button My flashcards to get to your personal flashcards deck.

2. Removing flashcards

  1. Click the grey button My flashcards. 
  2. Tick the cards you want to remove.
  3. Click the button Remove flashcard(s).

3. Displaying preview

If the content of a card is not exactly clear from the title, you can display a preview:

On the respective card (question) in the flashcard collection 

  • click on the displayed icon (tick, cross or question mark) in the Teacher check column or
  • click on the blue icon in the View column. 

In the preview you can:

  • edit flashcards you created yourself
  • see the text of the question
  • see the solution
  • rate the flashcard (peer review)
  • check the teacher check

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Learning with the flashcards

Requirement

You have already added flashcards to your flashcards collection.

1. Opening flashcards collection

  1. Click the Back to overview button at the top left to return to the start view of the flashcards activity.
  2. Here you can see the individual learning boxes.

2. Starting learning

You have 2 possibilites:

Starting with new flashcard deck

If you are learning with a flashcards activity for the first time or have selected a new set of questions for a new learning cycle, all the flashcards are in the first box (Start). 

Click Learn from box 1.

Continuing learning

If you have already studied with the flashcards, select any box that already contains flashcards, or use the Learn now box:

  1. Use the slider to specify how many cards you want to learn per round.
  2. Click Start learning.
  3. Cards are drawn at random from boxes 1 to 4. The progress bar at the top shows how many cards you have already learned in this round (known answers) and how many answers you still have to learn (unknown answers).

3. Answering question

  1. The questions will be displayed in random order, one at a time.
  2. Once you have answered the question for yourself, click Flip card to view the (sample) solution.
  3. Click I knew it or I didn’t know it. Cards that you have marked with I knew it will be moved to the next box. Not known cards will remain in the current box.

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Setting up your own flashcard

If the teacher allows it, students can create their own flashcards. These flashcards are automatically available to all students in the course.

1. Creating flashcard

Click Create/customize my flashcards and then Create new flashcard.

2. Entering content

  1. Enter the question title, question text and a sample solution (answer).
  2. Click Save changes.

3. Editing flashcard

You can edit the flashcards you have created yourself after saving them. Teachers can also edit them. 
You cannot edit flashcards created by teachers or other students.

To edit, click the gear icon in the Edit column in the list of flashcards.

  1. Make the desired changes.
  2. Before saving, you must specify whether you have made marginal changes (such as correcting typos) or substantial changes to the content.
  3. Click Save changes.

Note

If you have made substantial changes, the flashcard will be removed from all students’ flashcards decks after saving and moved back to the flashcards collection list. If your flashcard has already been rated, these ratings will be deleted.

4. Deleting flashcard

You can delete flashcards that you have created yourself. Teachers can also delete flashcards that you have created.

To delete a flashcard, click the recycle bin icon in the Delete column of the flashcard list. The flashcard will be irrevocably removed from all student flashcard decks and from the flashcard collection.

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Evaluating a flashcard

Open the flashcards list via Flashcards collection – Create/customize my flashcards 

  • The Created by column shows you who created the flashcard (teacher or student).
  • The Teacher check and Peer review columns give you information on the quality of the flashcards.

Teacher check

Teachers can mark flashcards created by students:

  • correct (green tick)
  • incorrect (red cross) 

A yellow question mark means that the question has not yet been evaluated by a teacher.

Peer review

Students can rate flashcards with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon: 

  1. In the flashcard overview (see above) in the View column click the view icon for the relevant card.
  2. At the bottom on the left of the preview you will find Peer Review. Click the thumbs-up icon if you rate the flashcard as good, or on the thumbs-down icon if you consider the flashcard to be poor or inadequate.
  3. The icon you have selected will be displayed in colour. In the counter below the icons, you can see the total number of positive and negative ratings for this card.

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