Have you heard of STUDYBLUE?

My student, we'll call him "Mr. J," turned my study world upside down last night.  I asked the student to share their study rubric in a short presentation for the class. I knew he was doing something on the Internet, that could be used on an Internet-capable phone, an iPad, and iTouch, or any computer. [The iPhone does have its own app for this!] The student showed us his materials at STUDYBLUE. This student chose STUDYBLUE because they love technology [so much so that they downloaded Mozilla Firefox to the classroom computer during their presentation so that it would be faster] and they wanted to be able to study for exams anywhere, at any time.

At first, the class, was not totally wowed. We began with flashcards, which you enter by class. It looks like this:

You can make them as simple or as detailed as you would like. You can play with fonts, color, bolding, italics-- all of it.  We started to really get more excited about the program [which is free, but can be upgraded for a fee if you feel the need for more features] when he showed us that you can use this for all sorts of learning styles. For example, if you look at the flash card's sidebar on the left, you can see that you can drop in both an audio file or a picture: great for visual and auditory learners. Most computers let you speak right into their built-in microphones and create MP3 files; you could speak your flash cards and drop them in here, then listen to your material where ever you are. Visual learners can take free images and place them in these flashcards, giving themselves a visual touch-point to recall during exams and class discussions. However, Mr. J was not finished.

In this screen, I am in the process of studying. Once you click on the green emblem, you can flip the card or you can test yourself and keep track of your answers. There is a thumbs up and a thumbs down option. You can choose whether or not to see the definition or the answer first. In this case, I've only made one card. Let's assume I didn't know the correct answer, and I've pressed the red "thumbs down." Here are my results:

See? It is showing me that my score is a zero. Now here is where it gets interesting. You can study again, focusing only on those answers you got wrong, or you can study all the material again in its entirety. For students that enjoy tracking their progress or competing against themselves and others, this is a great tool. Furthermore, you can post your results on facebook or twitter if you'd like.  The class was more impressed at this point, and then we learned that you can take all your information, look at it in flashcard form, note form or tablet form. You can create three kinds of quizzes for yourself modeled after real exam formats, including multiple choice and true or false.

I think this is a fantastic website-- it is visually appealing, well-organized and has enough options for students to make it their own. I was truly impressed with STUDYBLUE and will be telling all my students about it going forward, particularly because I imagine that more and more of our educational lives will begin happening "in the cloud." No, I'm not plugging a program because I'm getting a kickback-- no one at this website knows our class exists. What I am passionate about is finding new ways to engage students and help them enjoy the learning process. Students like Mr. J are teaching me new ways to do this all the time.  Where would I be without them?