Here is the simplest, clearest and most sustainable way of creating flashcards together with your students:
- Create a group for your school class and invite your students to join this group.
- Create an empty flashcard deck, or in other words one flashcard deck per theme, chapter or learning objective. You can do that step-by-step in line with your curriculum.
- Once you’ve created an empty flashcard deck, you click on “Share” in the “Actions” drop-down menu and entitle one or several students of your class to act as “Co-author” by entering their e-mail address in the “Individual user” section. Moreover, you can ask them (orally or in written) to add flashcards to the created flashcard deck within a predetermined time frame.
- As soon as the flashcard deck is ready (say in a weeks‘ time), you can lock it and get rid of ambiguities, mistakes and redundancies. The feature “Lock file” can also be found under “Share” in the “Actions” drop-down menu of the flashcard deck. By locking the file (or flashcard deck), you withdraw the write permission from your co-authors. Alternatively, you can also simply remove your co-authors.
- Finally, you share your final and approved file version with your group (class). Thus, all students can use it to study for their exam. Proceed as follows: “Actions” > “Share” >, then go to “My groups” and “select a group” > “Add as …” > “Fellow learners”. Of course, you can also start this procedure in the group view.
According to the age of your students you can adapt the approach described above. Of course, there are many other ways of setting up collaborative scenarios. Here are the main advantages of using this five-step approach:
- You have full control over the flashcard deck and over the learning content of your students at all times.
- The final flashcard deck is your property. You can reuse and share it with other groups (classes) at any moment.
- It is obvious that creating flashcards is the key to success in the learning process. Both, you and your students, benefit from this approach – students because they can study using the flashcards and yourself because you don’t have to do all the work on your own.
- Volume and quality of flashcard decks created by one of your students can be objectively evaluated.