I recently took the time to view and play around on www.brainflips.com. This is a website on which you can create decks of flashcards for any subject. There are also hundreds of decks that have already been created and are viewable by anybody.
While this site looks like a good idea in theory, I found some basic flaws. First of all, if you use the decks that have already been created, it is a wise idea to proofread them for errors. There is nothing worse than studying the wrong information! Second, creating these flashcards is very time consuming. Unless somebody is really computer savvy, I think that it will become frustrating before the learning curve is overcome. However, if students start on this website when they are young, it may just become part of their study habits. I currently teach Anatomy labs at the college level and I don't think that this site would be something that my students would use. I looked over some of the decks that would be pertinent to our class and found that they either had too much information or not enough information. Third, I could not find anyplace on the site to print the cards. They appear to only be available online.
On the plus side, it is great that these flashcards can be created online and accessed from anywhere. Students can view their flaschcards from their smart phones or any computer with internet access. Most students have consistent internet access, so this could work well. I think that a site that was specific to biology, with clipart or textbook photos, might work better for me in the future.
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