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Saturday 23 February 2013

ExamTime and what you can do with it

Examtime is a website which is primarily meant for students to increase their learning experience and help them revise for the exams. But as I have made sure, it can successfully be used by the teachers.

Examtime has four features which you can choose from - creating mind maps, flashcards, quizzes or study goals. The site also provides a range of study tips for students.

I have already posted a mind map that I created on Examtime a while ago. It is my favourite feature of those offered by Examtime and it produces really attractive mind maps.

Today I made a set of flashcards on the topic Publications.


Each flashcard has 2 sides, the front side for the word, the back side for the definition. Students can flip and shuffle the cards, and study the words at their own pace. In my opinion, it's an activity that has to be prepared exclusively by the teacher.


Creating a multiple choice quiz was a little inconvenient because first you have to prepare the questions with answers and only then, in the next step assemble the quiz. In the end the quiz turned out well, and it looked good. After completing the quiz, students can see where they made a mistake and see the correct answer with an explanation which has to be added in the preparation process.




An option Creating a goal means that students can write their study goals as a reminder of the approaching tests or exams that helps them plan their time and stay organized.




The registration and use of the website is free and its creators have given good thought to the ways of helping students in the study process, but I have a feeling this site should have been aimed at teachers. I don't know any student who would spend hours making a set of flashcards (which means looking up each definition in the dictionary) or creating multiple choice quizzes for themselves.

I find it discouraging that there is no option of sharing an activity by URL, only by email invitations. On the other hand, I admit it gives the website owners more control of the visitors and their online behaviour.
But I can imagine a situation when a student who created a mind map would like to show it to the teacher, and the only option will be inviting the teacher to the site instead of sharing the web address which just seems more time-saving to me.