Created by James Harris

Looking to learn a language, test your child on spelling or other educational subjects, or test your and your friends’ trivia knowledge? Well, FlashCards Lite for the Palm Pre® is the app for you. There are over 450 different editor’s picks flashcards available, along with user submitted flash cards, or just import them from popular sites like Flash Card Exchange, Quizlet or CSV.

The app launches with a list of ‘My Flash Card Sets’, with topics such as Childrens Alphabet, Periodic Table of Elements, and US State Capitals. Tap on a set and immediately the flash cards appear, with a helpful description and total number of cards. For example, choosing Childrens Alphabet shows a capital and lowercase ‘A’ along with a picture of an apple. You can edit the card by tapping the bubble and pencil icon on the top right corner of the card. To practice (go through all of the cards), you can tap the “Practice” icon on the bottom right corner of the screen and the cards appear one after the other (by tapping the arrow icons) or randomize what appears for more challenging testing. Adding a flash card to the set is easy. Simply tap the icon in the lower left hand corner (the paper with a plus), and add the question and answer you wish to include in the set, hit save and you’ve added a new question to the set.

For flash cards requiring actual answers, like US State Capitals, you simply tap on the question, e.g., What is the capital of Alabama?, a new screen appears where you can find out the answer or get a hint. The hints are elemental and a bit funny, such as asking the user to picture an enormous mountain of gum with an owl sitting on top, eating a banana, to find the capital of Alabama (owl + banana = Alabama; Mount + gum = Montgomery). I’m not sure I’d get it from that image, but maybe I need a more challenging set. Tap the question and the answer appears. You can keep track of your score by either tapping the green checkmark for a correct response or a red x for an incorrect response. You can also mark each question as learned, ask for a hint, edit the card, reverse mode (answer first, question second), or look at your practice stats, by either tapping on the icon at the top right hand corner of the blue bar across the screen or tapping a shortcut, like + H for Hint.

You can upload the set, reset all learned cards, and change your preferences and accounts information by tapping the menu tab at the top left corner of the screen. The interface is a little hard to understand at first and you definitely need to tap everything to figure out what each icon does. That being said, for someone looking to learn on the go, FlashCards Lite is good for that.

There is a paid version of the app, FlashCards Pro, which allows you an unlimited amount of flash cards in your set, which you can either create or install from online. The Lite version only allows you to add one set of cards. You can create or install them from online as well, but you will need to delete all existing sets first. Basically, FlashCards Lite is a trial version for a user as the selections of cards is very limited.

All in all, FlashCards Lite, while not exactly user friendly, is a good app on your Palm Pre to learn on the go for all members of the family.

Created by: 24/7 Tutor.

If you plan on traveling to a French-speaking country, you may want to download Free French Tutor by 24/7 Tutor to help you brush up on the language. This version covers key words and phrases to help new learners master the basics.

The Free French Tutor groups the lessons into five categories:

• Home and Family includes words and topics related to different parts of a house as well as to family members.
• Town and Country covers terms that convey location, including stores and geographic areas.
• Opposites provides frequently used words alongside their opposite, such as near/far or above/below.
• Basic Phrases features the phrases often used by travelers, as well as responses they might encounter while in a French-speaking country.
• Questions includes commonly used questions by tourists, including “How much does this cost?” and “Where is the restroom?”

Priority levels are set for each word grouping. All items are initially set to Priority 3, but you can change the priority levels as you take the quiz. If some words require more study, set them to Priority 1 or 2. Less important words and phrases can be set to Priority 4 or 5. This way you can focus only on those terms you really need to learn.

Once you’ve learned the vocabulary, the application gives you several ways to test your knowledge:

• Multiple choice – Pick the correct English translation of the French word(s) from a list of options.
• Puzzle – Select from a keypad of letters to spell the French word equivalent of the English word shown.
• Write in – Fill in the blanks to test your knowledge of how to spell the French word(s), including proper accent placement.
• Flash cards – The flash cards show the French word(s)/phrase, giving you an opportunity to say it aloud before seeing the answer. You can set the flash cards to automatically pronounce the word/phrase after a few seconds, as well as set it to automatically move to the next flash card.

At every stage throughout Free French Tutor, you can tap the speaker icon to hear the word(s) pronounced. The narration is done in a female voice with very clear pronunciation.

Pros: Covers basic French words and phrases. Offers several ways to test your knowledge. Audio button is available on every section to help you remember the word along with the proper pronunciation.
Cons: Write-in test is not intuitive in terms of figuring out how to input the word(s), even if you know how to spell them.