Project Details

Team

David Tredwell: System Architect
Amanda Robertson: Instructional Designer
David Howard: Instructional Designer
Ben Huckaby: Flash Developer
Matt Hisamoto: Prototype Developer
Rachel Lloyd: Mobile Prototype Developer
Spencer Strombotne: Mobile Prototype Developer
Cleo Magnuson: Usability Testing Lead
Lee Ann Gillen: Usability Tester
Lisa Fiedor: Accessibility Consultant
Jonathan Champ: Database Consultant

Client

Kay Sandberg: Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences

Technologies

Flash
PHP
mySQL

Timeline

Original Development: May 2007 to August 2008
Updates and Adaptations, including mobile-friendly version: continuing

Flashcards Study Tool

The Flashcard Study Tool is an instructional tool that instructors can set up and students can use to memorize important information including processes, terms, names, locations, theories and more.

Instructional Challenges

In CH 221, Organic Chemistry, students were tasked with memorizing molecular interactions, anticipating subsequent reactions, and having a quick response time in identifying them. Flashcards were a common method for students to study this material and the instructor wanted to give her online students a useful learning activity.

One missing component, however, was the ability to have one flash card lead to a specific next flash card in the series. The instructor felt that this capability would build on their learning and help solidify concepts. Additionally, she wanted the ability to include short animations or videos rather than just a photograph as the subject of her cards, as well as audio pronunciations. No existing flashcard solutions supported this combination of media elements.

Solutions

The DELTA team reviewed existing flashcard tools and found that none met the needs of the instructor. Rather than modify an existing solution to fit the needs of CH 221, the Flashcard Study Tool was developed to scale and serve any number of faculty in putting flashcards online. This system allows faculty to author sets of cards online for students, and to supplement text with images, sounds, and video. The flashcards can be “chained together” so that complex concepts will appear back-to-back across multiple cards.

The Flashcard tool is now available to all NC State courses and the card sets created for these courses are open and available to all NC State students. The Flashcard Study Tool can be used on large-format devices in the library, which are suitable for group study sessions, and will soon be released as a mobile application on iOS and Android platforms.

For further information and to create an authoring account, contact LearnTech at 919-513-7094 or learntech@ncsu.edu.