Monday, July 25, 2011

Flash cards

One of the members on a forum I hang out on recently passed the CCNA Security (640-553 IINS) exam. We got into a conversation about flash cards and his use of them in his studies. While studying for the CCNA the member hand wrote a good portion of his over 1100 flash cards, but for the CCNA:S he used open source (or possible just free) software for Windows called Cuecard (found here). Long story short (or is it long now?) I started to look into flash cards to help with my CCNA studies. Currently I use the Cisco CCNA 640-802 Cert Flash Cards, App for Iphone, but would like to expand these to things I don't feel I know well and make my own selections.

I use an Iphone for day to day functions (entertainment of my young ones at times), an Ipad2 for my reading, a MacPro for my home PC, and a Fujitsu convertable tablet for my laptop. At work I use a Windows 7 workstation and a CentOS box. If I'm to make flash cards, I really need something that can traverse most if not all of these devices / OSes. For instance I'd like to be able to create flash cards at work take them and upload them to my Ipad / Iphone, then possible use them on my Tablet as well. I think I would do it all on my work PC / Ipad, but the no flash thing really kills CBTs and some other applications. However, I may have a 2 application solution.

Cue (pun, so intended) Quizlet and Mental Case and/or possibly Flashcards* with more research. Qiuzlets allows for easy web based creation of flash cards and distribution so it seems. By distribution I mean the cards you create are shared with other users of the service. It is free and offers tests, games, an API, along with a few other features. Seems like a great tool for learning. Quizlet can then export flash cards to Mental Case for usage with that application. Mental case is a sleek looking app with a bevy of import features (email, Bluetooth, etc) and lessons "based on scientific research into how people learn" to make leaning notes more efficient. Needless to say I think I'm going to try this setup out to see if I can get in some good studying with flash cards.




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