Today’s installment is another entry in my series about learning tools that can be used on your computer. These programs are of the same type since they are all flash card type programs, but one is sophisticated enough to allow you to include pictures and some sounds. Some of the programs have lessons, like capitals, foreign languages, and books. These programs may be considered at the bottom of the entertainment totem pole, but they can be very very useful when the information you or your child is trying to learn is just not that fun in the first place. Examples include multiplication tables, capitals of the U.S.A., vocabulary, or nursing information.

The first program is call Pauker and can be found here. This application is written in java, and so is available for virtually any computer system, and the list of lessons maintained at the Web site is very extensive. Including language, nursing, math, geography, and the table of elements.

The second program is called Granule, and implements a specific type of learning system described by Sebastian Leitner. By reading the links I believe this learning system is supposed to enable both short and long term memorization. This program requires the GTK+ (Gimp ToolKit) libraries, but the installer takes care of all that, so it should be very easy to just install and run the application.

The third program is called Memorize Word FlashCard System, and is another java application that can be run on virtually any computer system. The author describes this as “Leitner Flashcard English learning tool.” There are directions for creating the flash cards, and explains that the program retrieves information directly from Merriam-Webster Dictionary and The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. So I would assume that this program is very fixed to learning English, and the meaning of various English words. The author also says that one of the features of the program is the ability to “automatically retrieve any words pronunciations in a audio format from Internet.” How this is accomplished I have no idea, especially when the user does not have broadband connection.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Pauker and Granule also work on various PDA or phone platforms so you can learn while you are sitting on the train, or waiting for a meeting to start. Please no learning while driving! See the respective Web sites for specific requirements for each system.

These programs should be very useful for those who have need to memorize information, and especially those who need to learn to read a new language. The Web sites for the programs are:

• Pauker
• Granule
• Memorize Word Flash Card System

[tags]microface, open source, learning, flash card, granule, Compact Oxford English, Pauker, Memorize Word Flash Card System[/tags]