How to Ace your Studies with Digital Flash Cards: OneNote + NoteDex Index Cards + a Microsoft Surface
Welcome back to school. How are you going to make the most of your new Windows Surface device and study the best you can? Put down that Xbox controller! :)
This article is focused on students that are adopting the ‘digital’ technologies, and I will provide a simple three step path for successful studying. If you are reading this, you have already chosen what is perhaps the most capable and useful device for studying — the Microsoft Surface. It might be that you have the Surface Book, Surface Pro or the cool new Surface Go! And hopefully you got the digital pen with it.
Flash cards are a great way to study, and students often buy packets of ‘Index Cards’ to make them. The idea of flash cards is to enable you to memorize new concepts, or answers to questions, through a process of active recall, with the card containing information or a concept to learn, or very often a question on the front and the answer on the back of the card. There are many ways to do this, both creating cards on paper and also on the computer, and some advanced study techniques also incorporate a principal of time-interval repetition for learning.
In order to study successfully you will want to separate:
1) Lesson note taking
2) Flash card creation
3) Studying
1) Lesson Note taking
In our digital world, you will want to take notes on your computer. There are many tools out there but perhaps the best is Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10. This is available on Windows, Android, Mac and iPad so you can see your notes on all your devices. With OneNote you can take lots of lecture notes, both with your keyboard and your pen, containing text, ink, hyperlinks and even videos.
2) Flash Card creation
When it comes to Flash Card creation, one of the best applications out there is our cross platform NoteDex Index Cards App. You can use your pen to write your cards (the process of writing will aid in your studying). And you can of course use your keyboard. This ‘transfer’ process of reviewing your notes, and creating the cards is a valuable part of the learning process. With NoteDex Index Cards you can organize your cards into Stacks, and even in Groups within Stacks, something you can’t really do with many note taking programs. This will help you to organize your cards better. And the best thing? You can make as many cards as you like. Unlimited index cards that look better than the real thing! Be creative, it helps learning. But keep them SIMPLE. There is a great article on the web by Thomas Frank which I highly recommend you watch ‘8 Better Ways to Make and Study Flashcards’. One thing Thomas highlights is the power of using pictures along with the word/concept you are learning. It’s a great article — do read it! Bring up the OneNote notes on one side of the computer, and the NoteDex Index Cards app on the other. And do use your pen — while you can create them by typing, there is a different mind-meld that occurs when you use a pen to transfer your thoughts to the (digital) paper. If you don’t have the pen, get it!!! This is why I recommend our NoteDex Index Cards app to just any of the (great) web apps out there for cards — the process of creating the cards is not as mentally/tactically interactive and reinforcing as it is with using the NoteDex Index Cards app (and likewise with OneNote too).
Power tip #1: in NoteDex Index Cards app you can even print to PDF format , so once you have edited your cards and made them perfect, you even print out final hard copies, both the back and front!
Power tip #2: Unlike all other index card type apps out there, NoteDex is the only one that has true cross-platform inking capability — so you can use NoteDex on your Windows computer, your Mac, your iPad, basically any device! You can always access NoteDex from any phone, tablet or web browser by just logging into https://notedex.app
You might also find that you like NoteDex Index Cards to take lecture notes - the app enables you to take lots of text on a card through the font size changing — a powerful feature. And a final note on flash cards: the method is very good for learning facts and use mnemonics to really supercharge your cards - acronyms, coined sayings, interacting images. Think more creatively when using index cards to capture concepts — here diagrams or descriptions in your own words might be needed to ensure you are embedding the concept in your mind. Watch the video below by Marty Lobdell…its worth the hour, I wish I knew some of these tips when I was at school and university!
3) Studying
In order to study with flashcards you want to mix things up and not study in the same sequence all the time. In the NoteDex Index Cards app you can ‘shuffle’ the cards — this will ensure that you are not seeing the same cards in the same sequence all the time. You can also hide certain cards when you are happy that you know them, so you can study more efficiently. If you want more options on your cards, you can also export rich text data from the NoteDex Index Cards app and import them to very study-focused tools on the web, such as Quizlet. You can also export cards as Images or PDF from NoteDex Index Cards so you can view them elsewhere such as on your phone or to send to a friend — and, if your best friend asks really nicely, you can even send your whole stack to them so they can use and edit them — if they are also using the NoteDex Index Cards app!
Like anything, as Thomas Frank also says, flash cards are not the only method of studying. But by using OneNote and NoteDex Index Cards, along with your powerful Surface computer, you will have the best chance to incorporate the best techniques into your studies.
Good luck!
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#backtoschool #indexcards #surface #onenote #flashcards #study
References:
Microsoft OneNote http://www.onenote.com
NoteDex Index Cards https://www.notedexapp.com
5 Index Card Apps for iPad — that also work on Mac, Windows, Android and Web!
Thomas Frank https://collegeinfogeek.com/flash-card-study-tips/
Marty Lobdell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0
Avery 5388 Index Cards https://www.avery.com/products/cards/5388
