A big advantage of flash cards is that they can be easily created. You can use most types of paper for instance for that. Users who like more control over their flash cards can use a software like Cabra instead to create the cards. This can be helpful to print multiple sets of cards, or to use machine typed cards.

Cabra is a multi-platform application to create flash cards. The application requires a recent version of the Java Runtime Environment on the system, but has no other dependencies besides that.

You can import existing projects into the application or create a new project. New flash cards are created with a click on the create a flashcard button.

Creation is simple and straightforward. Just enter a question, word or phrase under question, and an answer, word or phrase under answer. You can optionally add a picture or photo to the card which is automatically displayed on the question side of the card. Only plain text can be added to a card, with copy and paste being supported. This is handy if you have the questions and answers in text form and want to turn them into flash cards.

A click on study in the main interface offers to test the created cards. This can be used as a way to test the cards, or as a learning tool.

The card manager lists all existing flash cards of a project that has been loaded, the notes tab offers to add notes which anyone who loads the project can access and change.

Projects can be exported which saves them to the local system, or printed which will print the flash cards on a connected printer.

Cabra offers different themes that users can make use of if they like. It is easy to create new flash card sets with Cabra. Interested users can download the latest version of the open source application from the developer website. A handful of sample projects are available for download on the web page as well.

There are few tools so highly in tune with the needs of students. But is Uberstudent the right tool to aid you in the quest for your higher education? Let’s take a look and find out.

Features

Features? You want features? How about the following snippet from the toolset Uberstudent includes:

• Education-specific take on the Firefox browser.
• Zotero research tool.
• LyX document processing tool that enables you to concentrate on content.
• Virtual Understanding Environment concept and content mapping tool.
• Top shelf for keeping track of your working files.
• Buddi finance management.
• Keepnote for class notes.
• Plenty of document templates.
• ThinkingRock, a visual planner.
• Beagle for quick searching of your files.
• Ardesial for writing directly over OpenOffice presentations.

and much, much more. So much so, you could easily spend days taking your initial look at all the available tools.

Education

There is a menu, under the Applications menu, called Education. Within that menu you will find six sub-menus:

• Books: Here you will find tools for managing eBooks as well as links to web sites selling cheap (or rental) textboks.
• Research and Writing: Here you will find nearly every tool you can think of to aid you in the process of research and writing. From Document writing to notes, to different incarnations of Firefox to the Mendeley Desktop (keeps track of all your PDFs and research papers).
• Self-Management: Keep track of your finances, social networking, time, and tasks.
• Study Aids: Here you will find flash card tools, dictionaries, thesaurus, and much more.
• Subjects: Help with Math and the ability to browse educational software by subject (not yet implimented).
• Utilities: Translators, stopwatch, lecture tools, schedulers, more note tools, resume builder, and more.

Browsers

Uberstudent comes with two browsers: Firefox and Chrome. The Firefox included with Uberstudent has been fine-tuned to aid you in your quest for education, which means you will be using it for specific needs. It includes the Zotero add-in which helps you collect, manage, and cite your work. All default bookmarks in Firefox are geared towards learning as well.  In the Browsers menu you will also find a Firefox cheatsheet which includes keyboard and mouse shortcuts to make your Firefox experience more efficient. You will need this as there have been so many enhancements to Firefox. For regular, every day browsing, Uberstudent includes Chrome without any specific enhancements.

Final thoughts

If you are looking for an operating system perfect for the higher education environment, look no further than Uberstudent. This distribution of Linux contains so many education-specific tools you will be spending your first days with it just marveling at what the developers have packed into one single operating system…and nearly every single tool specific to helping you achieve your goal of graduation. With school about ready to reconvene, I highly recommend you give this take on Linux a try. Your education will thank you for it.

But is this as easy as it might seem? If you already know how to create a presentation in OpenOffice Impress – yes. If you’re not sue how to create a very basic presentation then you might want to figure that process out before embarking on the creation of flash cards. Either way, you can install the extension so that when you have mastered the basic presentation, you are ready to go.

Getting and installing

Installing this extension is like installing any OpenOffice extension. The first thing you need to do is download the extension file. Once you have that file downloaded open up any of the OpenOffice tools (or even the main OpenOffice window), go to the Tools menu and click on the Extension Manager entry to open the Extension Manager tool.

Figure 1

From the Extension Manager window (see Figure 1) click the Add button and then navigate to where you saved the OpenCards extension file. Once you have found the file click the Open button to install the extension.

When OpenCards is installed it will be listed in the Extension Manager window and you will need to then restart OpenOffice to complete the installation.

Now fire up OpenOffice Impress and create a new presentation.

Presentation as flash card

Instead of spending too much time into creating a too-fancy presentation, here’s what you need to do. When you create a presentation you can use whatever style you want. But as far as the data is concerned you only need to bits:

• A title.
• A bullet point in the body.

Figure 2

OpenCards works like this: It will start a special slide show with your presentation. For this slide show it will present you the title of a slide (which will be in the form of a question or however you want to use your flash cards) and, when prompted, will present to you the answer.  Let me show you an example. After you have completed your presentation go to the OpenCards menu and select the Last Minute Learning entry. This will open up a smaller window and alter your presentation window to show the first slide as a flash card (see Figure 2). As you can see, the title of the card is the only portion presented to you. When you are ready to see the answer you just click the “Show Completed Card” in the smaller window. When you click that you will see the answer in the body of the slide and the smaller window will change asking if you remembered the card “Perfectly” or “Not at all”.  When you answer this question it will automatically go on to the next card. Repeat this until you have completed the rotation of the cards.

You will notice, once you have mastered all of the cards in your presentation, you can not start the presentation. In order to restart the presentation you have to click the Reset Learn-State button in the Last Minute Learning window.

Final thoughts

OpenCards also contains a Long-Term Learning feature which will be covered in another article (as it is far more complex than the Last Minute Learning). This extension is an outstanding means to learn facts for school, work, training, etc. If you’re looking for a free flash card solution that has the ability to retain your learning statistics, OpenCard is your tool.