Share questions between Quizlet and Sakai

My colleague and I are taking advantage of Quizlet to help students learn basic material for a course called “Applied Multimedia.” Quizlet is a website/app where learners can use electronic flash cards in several different ways (StudyBlue is another site with similar functionality). You can make up your own cards or tap into the library of sets shared by other users, and teachers can create private classes with customized packages of card sets. Quizlet tells students when they have mastered a set of cards and shows the teacher which students are using the cards.

For our course, we created about a dozen thematic sets of cards covering the language of multimedia. We then turned the content – verbatim – into objective questions for two midterm exams that students take in class through Sakai. This strategy makes it relatively easy for students to prepare for one part of each test. The other part is a critique where students apply media literacy concepts to an image, video, or sound recording.

I became motivated to try this seemingly superficial strategy while reading an excellent book, Make it Stick. It reminded me that, while high level thinking may be the ultimate learning goal for a course, students need to learn basic information before they can apply complex concepts. The students really seemed to like it, and their test results were exceptionally good.

Converting Quizlet items into Sakai questions is pretty straightforward. I use a text editor as an intermediary, but that’s not necessary. See the video below.