Bulbul's Flashcard Program

The following is a link to a browser-based flashcard program i am currently developing. It is written entirely in JavaScript, and is run in a browser, without the need to install any software. It has been developed using Mozilla, and should work in Mozilla, Firefox, and recent versions of Netscape. It does not yet work in Internet Explorer or Konqueror/Safari. Fixing that will depend on finding a JavaScript debugger for those browsers. (Mozilla has one integrated.)

The intended purpose of the program is to teach language vocabulary. The current demonstration page tests ability to do simple addition and subtraction tasks in Swahili.

Here is the link. A question loads. Click on an answer. As feedback, your selection gets a frame drawn around it, the background of the correct answer turns green, and that of the incorrect answers turn pink. When you click on the button, the current flashcard goes to the end of the stack. When this question works its way back to the top of the stack, the question will appear in a somewhat different form. Alternate correct and incorrect answers may be presented, and the answers will appear in a new, random order. If you think this is at all easy to do in JavaScript, take a look at the code here. It's currently about 650 lines of Javascript code, in addition to the HTML code for the page in which it displays.

The data is all stored in plain ol' HTML files. For example, here is the file in which the addition questions are stored.

The version currently posted here is from January 1, 2005.

Here are the intended advantages of this program:

It will be written entirely in JavaScript and HTML. It doesn't need to be installed to be used. It is accessed entirely through the browser.
It will be released under an open source license, to promote its use rather than inhibit its use.
Because all data is stored in HTML files (with span elements to identify data types), material can be written for it by anyone with basic HTML skills.
Because data is stored in HTML, adding images to presentation questions and answers is as easy as adding them to any web page.

Here are features and improvements i hope to add:

New question types will be added. The current version only has a type of multiple question. Other question types (or, more generally, presentation item types) will be these:

A one-sided card, for presentation of material only, with no response taken.
A two-sided card, like a physical flashcard, which can be flipped over to view the information on the back, and with which only the user knows if he got the answer wrong or right.
A short answer field question, where the student types in a one-word response.

A more sophisticated card deck. If you answer the question correctly, the card goes to the back of the deck. If you got it wrong, it goes to the middle.
A scoring interface: how many questions answered, how many right, how many wrong.
I am weighing the pros and cons of storing the data in XML files rather than HTML files. XML files makes life easier on the application side, but HTML makes things easier for the person writing the data. HTML also makes it easier to add images and audio, and to preformat text.

Come back again soon!