I found Flash Card Machine a few years ago and have been recommending that to students ever since. It’s not the most techie site in the world but it gets the job done. Now that my students have gadgets, some are using apps like iFlipr to create cards to use on their mobile devices.

While I love the idea of using flash cards on a mobile device, I don’t have an iPhone (yet, I am very much tempted to get one as teachers get a significant discount on AT&T plans), my Microsoft Zune’s screen is much too small for such a program (and I haven’t found one that would work on a Zune anyway), and I can’t find an app in the Windows Mobile Marketplace that would allow me to create my own flash cards.

I was looking online recently for another flash card program that I might like better than Flash Card Machine and stumbled across a new (to me) Flash cards program the other day called “Flashcards” by Microsoft Education Labs.

It caught my eye immediately because:

1. In general I tend to love Microsoft products (I’ll admit it, I do)
2. The interface is pretty
    
3. You can have any combination of text, image, and sound on the front and the back ( a lot of programs limit you to making such choices on one side only
4. There are three different study modes (most other online programs only have 1):
   1. Review mode – Where you look at the front and back side by side like this

      

   2. Study mode – which, as their Blog states it, is based on the “honor system” and you quiz yourself like this:

      

   3. Type It In mode – compares what you type in the box with the correct answer.

      

5. You can swap fronts and backs to have an altogether different study experience.
6. If you start practicing your cards on one computer, and continue on another, it will pick up where you left off.
7. You can print a report of your progress**(see note below)
8. Or you can view your progress by looking at the bottom of the screen where it says Keep trying or Good Memory. As you improve, the cards you know the best move to the right side of the screen where it says Good Memory

**

When I used this with my students I discovered two things:

1. Requires Silverlight which isn’t installed on all of the students’ machines. So I had to log them off and log on myself and install it before they could try it out
2. The print a report feature only seems to work immediately after you have finished a Study or Type It in Session. Students who didn’t print at that time didn’t have the report later. I wish there was a feature that would enable students to access reports after the study session.

I’m using the flash cards to prep for the GRE exam which is one of my goals for this summer.

I’m not finished reading her book yet (on my Kindle) but I absolutely love it. And while starting my own personal Happiness Project sounds like an amazingly wonderful idea – it also sounds a little overwhelming to me right now.

I have decided, however, to adopt one of her commandments for myself – thus my new mantra:

Be Monica.

To me this means I will worry less about what others think and do more of what I know is good for me.

It started today when I finally began studying for the GRE.

I’m studying for the GRE so I can go back to school to get my Ph.D. Many people feel that this would be a crazy thing for me to do.

Why?

Because I already have an Ed.D.

Some people wonder if I simply want another set of initials after my name – in fact I don’t care much about initials (I’ve had an MBA since I was 22 and I’ve never used those initials).

Others wonder if I don’t feel that my degree is “real” because it’s an Ed.D. and not a Ph.D.  I don’t feel that way. I firmly believe that I have a “real” doctorate.

I want to go back to school because I love to learn and I want to become a better researcher.

There are so many topics and theories that I want to explore including: instructional technology, curriculum development, pre-service teacher education and professional development for current teachers.

I have a lot of experience with applied research but I want to learn more about theoretical research. You can learn about the difference between those types of research here if you are interested.

So today I started studying. My goal is to take the test by the end of May so I don’t have to spend the summer studying.

This is my first step in my quest to “Be Monica”.