Thursday, December 15, 2011

Semester Wrap-Up

As the semester comes to a close for most teachers and students it also signifies the end of Easy Notecards' first semester. Our members have created over 40,000 notecards for 110+ books in a little over 3 months. It's great to see so many people of all ages and backgrounds benefiting from Easy Notecards. Teachers have used it for in class studying and homework and students have used it to ace their next test.

As Easy Notecards continues to grow we will continue to evolve to meet the needs of you, our users. Your feedback has been and will always be instrumental to the development of Easy Notecards. For example, many of you wanted a better way to separate notecards you know from those you don't. Our current system allows you to mark notecards you don't know. This works good except that your marked notecards aren't remembered for future study sessions. In a few days we will be releasing an enhancement that not only remembers your marked notecards but also allows you to select All Cards, Marked Cards or Un-Marked Cards when taking the quiz, playing the matching game or printing notecards. More on this in a future post.

I'll leave you with a few cool notecard sets from our first semester:


Have a Great Holiday Season!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Adding Items to Favorites

With Easy Notecards you can add notecard sets, books and members to your favorites. Before looking at the benefits of doing this, I'll show you how to add and remove favorites.

To add an item to your favorites click the appropriate Add to My Favorite Item Type(s) button where Item Type is either Notecard Set, Book or Member.

Here's the favorite button (circled in red) for a notecard set. The location is the same for a book and member.


Favorites are stored and organized in your locker. Your Easy Notecards Locker

To remove an item from your favorites either do so through your locker or click the Remove from My Favorite Item Type(s) on the item's page.

Benefits of  Favorites
The main benefit of favorites is being able to quickly access items that are helpful to you. For example, to view a book you previously added to your favorites you would go to your locker, click the Fav books tab and click the book.

Another benefits of favorites is the notifications that come along with them. Notifications are short messages about activities that may be of interest to you. Go to Settings to adjust what notifications you receive.

Here are the 3 notifications associated with the 3 favorite types:
  1. Favorite Notecard Set - You will be notified if one of your favorite notecard sets is edited
  2. Favorite Book - You will be notified if a notecard set is added to one of your favorite books
  3. Favorite Member - You will be notified is one of your favorite members creates a new notecard set
Favorites is another way Easy Notecards saves you valuable time and energy.


Wednesday, November 30, 2011

New Feature: Related Sets

The new Related Sets feature on Easy Notecards displays up to 5 notecard sets similar to the notecard set you are currently viewing.

The Related Sets section (circled below) can be found below the notecard set details:



Try it for yourself. Check out the Related Sets for Plants In Spanish/English.

This new feature makes it even easier for you to find valuable notecards to study (students) or use as a teaching tool (teachers).

http://www.easynotecards.com

Monday, November 21, 2011

New Feature: Quick Edit

The new Quick Edit feature on Easy Notecards allows you to quickly and easily edit an existing notecard without leaving the notecard set page.

To quick edit a notecard click the edit icon for the notecard you want to edit. The location of the edit icon depends on if you are in Notecard view or List view.

Here's the edit icon in Notecard view:



And here's the edit icon in List view:



Clicking the edit icon brings up this box that allows you to edit the text and images for the notecard:



Click Save to save your changes.

Quick Edit saves you a lot of time when you want to edit existing notecards. If you want to add or delete notecards or edit other sections of the notecard set such as title or description you will still need to use the full edit page.

http://www.easynotecards.com

Friday, November 11, 2011

What Others Are Saying About Easy Notecards

In the short time Easy Notecards has been online there have been quite a few articles and blog posts written about us.

Here are a few examples:

Easy Notecards - Easy Flashcards  via Free Technology for Teachers
"I think the option to associate textbooks with flashcard sets could be a great feature"

Easy Notecards via Technology Tidbits: Thougts of a Cyber Hero
"I highly recommend checking out Easy Notecards"

Easy Notecards: Create or Find Study Notecards Online via makeuseof
"A user-friendly web service"

Easy Notecards - Easily Create Your Own Flashcards via Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
"Easy Notecards is a greate educational resource"

Catch of the Day - Easy Notecards - 8/22/2011 via Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century
"The unique feature of Easy Notecards that distinguishes it from other notecard/flashcard tools is the ability to create notecards tied to a specific textbook"

Easynotecards.com - Must Have App for Students and Teachers via WebAppRater
"[Easy Notecards] is a tool that applies to either students or teachers and facilitates group communication as well"

"EasyNotecards.com is not only unique and creative in its way, but hugely helpful"

Easy Notecards via iTeach
"Easy Notecards is a great place to make flashcards on any topic"

Easy Notecards via Middle School, day by day from a teacher's point of view
"But by the end of the hour, students wanted copies of the words/definitions to finish on their own at home. They had decided [Easy Notecards] was cool, fun and engaging. SUCCESS :)"

Easy Notecards via Sally's Tech Tips
"This is one of the only sites I have found that does not require an email address. That's helpful for kids who don't have one."

Easy Notecards was also selected as an Editor Top Pick by Best of the Web (BOTW)

Check out Easy Notecards for yourself and see what your think. http://www.easynotecards.com
It's totally free and always will be.

Have a great weekend everyone!


Monday, November 7, 2011

Your Easy Notecards Locker

One of the benefits of registering for an Easy Notecards account is that you get your own locker. Your locker keeps track of your created notecard sets, favorites (notecard sets, books and members) and recent activity. Even if you don’t plan on creating any notecards sets your locker can still be a valuable resource. To get to your locker, make sure you're signed in and click the My Locker tab at the top. To view another member's locker, click their username.

Check out jncanf’s locker as an example. (jncanf, I hope you don’t mind me using you as an example.)

Here’s a brief description of each locker tab.
Note: Even though you can view any member's locker, the tab descriptions below assume you are viewing your own locker.



Displays notecard sets you have created organized by the chapters of a book. The last section, No Book, displays any notecard sets not linked to a specific book. Notecard sets can be sorted by Newest, Views and Helpfulness. Placing your cursor over a notecard set will show the edit and delete options.

Displays notecard sets you have added to your favorites. (To add a notecard set to your favorites, click Add to My Favorite Notecard Sets when viewing a notecard set). The Fav Notecards tab is organized just like the Created Notecards tab with the same sort options. Placing your cursor over a notecard set will show the remove from favs option.

If one of your favorite notecard sets is edited you will receive a notifications. (more about notifications in a later blog post)

Displays books you have added to your favorites. (To add a book to your favorites, click Add to My Favorite Books when viewing a book). Books can be sorted by Title, Newest notecard set, Notecard set count. Placing your cursor over a book will show the remove from favs option.

If a notecard set is added to one of your favorite books you will receive a notification.

Displays members you have added to your favorites. (To add a member to your favorites, click Add to My Favorite Members when viewing a book). Members can be sorted by Username, Newest created set and Created set count. Placing your cursor over a member will show the remove from favs option.

If one of your favorite members creates a new notecard set you will receive a notification.

An item is added to the Recent Activity tab when you create or edit a notecard set, rate a notecard set, add an item to your favorites, finish a quiz, complete a matching game or post a comment. You can select to view all recent activity (the default) or a specific type of activity such as just posted comments. You can also view recent activity for your favorite members by clicking the My fav members link.

Quick note about your locker privacy When viewing your own locker you will be able to see items pertaining to private notecard sets but no one else will be able to. The same is true for notecard sets you rate as not helpful. If you rate a notecard set as not helpful you will be able to see it in your recent activity but no one else will be able to.

Your locker is just one of the many perks of being an Easy Notecards member.

Have a question or comment? Feel free to Contact Us

Monday, October 31, 2011

Intro to Easy Notecards

Easy Notecards (EN) is a 100% free, web-based tool that makes learning (and teaching) new material fun and easy. With EN you can create notecards, aka flashcards, that you and others can study (look below to see the available study options on EN). What sets EN apart from the other notecard/flashcard sites out there is the ability to link your notecards to a specific book and chapter(s).

Linking to a Specific Book
When creating a notecard set you have the option to link it to a specific book. You can link to any book available on Google Books. You can also enter the chapter or chapters the notecard set pertains to. This makes it so much easier for you and others to find notecard sets to study since they are organized by books.

For example, check out the Introduction to Medical Terminology book. Notice how the notecard sets are broken down by chapter.

Study Options
Although you can study notecards one at a time, that is not the only way to study on EN. Let's take a look at some of the other ways to study. We'll use the State Capitals notecard set as an example.

  1. Study One Notecard at a Time - Use the green arrows to navigate the notecards. You have the option to view both sides of the notecard at once or only one side. You can also Mark notecards that are causing you trouble. Then, when you start over, you will have the option to view only the notecards you marked.
  2. Study All Notecards at Once - Lists all notecards that belong to the set. To get to the list click List view directly below the notecard set's title.
  3. Quiz - A multiple choice quiz is automatically created for every notecard set. To get to the quiz click the blue Quiz Me button when viewing a notecard set.
  4. Matching Game - An interactive matching game is automatically created for every notecard set. EN keeps track of the top scores for each matching game. To get to the matching game click the blue Matching Game button when viewing a notecard set. 
In addition to the different study options you also have a couple of different ways to print a notecard set.

Printing Options
Printing a notecard set is a great way to study when you don't have access to a computer.
  1. Print as a List - Click print as a list when viewing a notecard set. Options include font size and whether to print the front or back side first.
  2. Print as Notecards - Click print as notecards when viewing a notecard set. You have the option to print on both sides of the page (Front & Back) or only the front (Side by Side). Other options include the number of cards per page and whether to print or not print the labels.
As you can see there is a lot you can do with EN with a lot more to come. Students, create notecard sets and share them with your classmates. Teachers, create notecard sets and go over them in class or have your students study them as homework. The possibilities are endless.

We launched August 2011 and already have 25,000+ notecards for 85+ books!
http://www.easynotecards.com