There are plenty of flash cards sites, apps and ideas out there. And many of them are great. But… it’s nice to not have to add another tool to your classroom, another site to your list of resources, another password for your students to remember and possibly another account for your students to access.
So, if you don’t need a fully-featured flash cards solution, stick with what you’ve got (and know): Google Slides.
- Students can work together to create the cards.
- You can assign each kid a card to make . . . and 5 minutes later you have a whole deck.
- Cards can involve pictures from a Google image search, pictures from students’ Drive or webcams, drawings and videos.
- You can project it in class to have a class-wide review.
- Students can use it to study from their cell phones and other devices.
- If you have a class website, you can embed the Slides on the site.
- Students can make a copy of the Slides to make them their own, add information that helps them, delete cards they already know and add cards for terms they struggle with.
*Disclaimer: I’m really not a flash cards, vocabulary kind of guy. Knowing the lingo has some value, but in general… memorization of stuff that fits on a flash card is just that: memorization. Since I know that it’s an important part of a lot of classrooms, I want to share this strategy for doing it, but I hope that you do it along with other types of learning experiences, like Project-Based Learning and other inquiry-based strategies.