CABRA - A Smarter Flashcard Maker App for Studying

One of the most common methods students use to study for an exam is through flashcards. Flashcards are especially useful to learn special terminology in different areas of study. Software like the Cabra flashcard program gives you the ability to offer that sort of study session in your classroom.

WEBSITE: http://cabra.hathix.com/

Some examples of how students can use flashcards include how to spell words, learning the capitals of countries, or many other topics.

It isn't always easy for teachers to find high quality flashcard software.

There are plenty of flash card websites out there, but when it comes to installing software on your classroom computer to offer flashcard study sessions for your students, you really want software that can perform.

The Cabra Flashcard Maker Program
Cabra is a highly customizable flashcard program that allows teachers to create the flashcard sessions, and then students can import those lessons and use them as personal study guides.

When you first launch the Cabra software, it actually looks rather plain, with two blank panes ad a couple of tabs. The truth is, the software's true worth is hidden behind the "Create a project" button.

Launching Cabra Flashcard Maker

That button will launch you - the educator - into a tool that you can use to generate the questions and answers of your flashcard study system. The cool thing about this software is that there's also a great library of projects already created by other educators that use the Cabra flashcard maker.

To create your own set of electronic flash cards with this flashcard maker, you click on the Create a Project button and then name the project that will contain those flash cards.

Naming Your Project

Once you have the project in place, your next task is to create the series of flashcards that will be loaded into the project one at a time. This is really the part of the flashcard maker app for teachers - this is the construction phase.

Students can run the application on their own computer, and import the project that you've created. That means that the educator use of the software and the student use of the software is very different - but everyone runs the same program.

The Flashcard Creation Tool

Once you click on the "Create a flashcard" button, the flashcard maker launches a window where you can work through creating your individual flashcards. Just type in the question and the answer in their correct fields, and you can also add images to the flashcard if you like.

Creating Flashcards

To create the next card in the series, just click on "Finish and add card", and you can create another card without having to close or open any windows. This lets you quickly create your entire project in no time at all.

Tracking Progress

Once you're finished, you'll see the project monitoring page. For students that run the software, this is where the study results are shown. If no study session has been completed yet, then all of the results will be in the "Rank A" group, which are cards that have not been answered correctly yet. After each study session, this area will be updated with the most recent statistics, depending on the number of correct answers.

Project Monitoring Page

If you click on the "Card Manager" tab, you'll see an area where you can quickly manage all of the cards you've created within this project. This is a fast way to delete or edit cards you've made - an editor for after you've already created an existing project.

Card Manager

The software also has a "Vault" where there is what appears to be a "point-earning" system. Essentially, different actions within the software are supposed to build points, which students can spend for specific virtual items.

However, the vault system doesn't appear completed yet, or it doesn't quite work right.

Point System

You could spend time building all of your own projects for your different classes and topics. However, the folks at Cabra actually offer an impressive library of existing projects that have been created and donated by other educators that use this flashcard maker software.

To access this library, all you have to do is click on the "Import/Export" menu item and choose "Download projects online" from the menu.

Download Projects Online

There are currently just over a dozen projects as part of the Cabra community library, but at the bottom of the project library page, there's an upload form that other community members can use to upload their own flashcard projects. As more and more educators use this software, you can be sure that you'll continue finding even more flashcard projects here.

Download Projects Online

One example of such a project is the US State Capitals flashcard maker download that asks students the state, and they need to guess the capital of that state.

The study session first displays the answer. Students need to think of the answer and then press on a button for the answer. If they knew the correct answer, they click on "Got it". If they got it wrong, they click on "Nope". If their answer was almost the same but not identical, the student will click on "Sort of".

Download Projects Online

At the end of the study session, the student will receive the overall statistics from the session - including the percentage of answers submitted correctly, wrong or "sort of" answered.

Study Session Results

Every time the student returns to this project, they will see an updated listing of those statistics, incorporated into the statistics from past sessions. This shows how many cards are left that need to be answered correctly.

Project Results

This is a great way for students to see how much progress they've made between study sessions. To start the study sessions fresh, such as in the case where the application is being used by multiple students on the same computer, the "Reset deck" button will reset the statistics and allow the next student to start a fresh study session.

There are a lot of flashcard maker apps out there, but not all of them are created equal. When it comes to easily creating quick study flashcards that students can use in simple study sessions, Cabra is an excellent and useful tool for teachers.