Transcript
Flash My Brain The integrated software for creating, studying, and sharing flashcard learning materials.
User’s Guide 1.1 http://www.flashmybrain.com -
[email protected]
Copyright © 2006 mode of expression, LLC. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without prior written approval of mode of expression, LLC.
Table of Contents Chapter 1: Getting Started ......................................................................................................................... 3 Flash My Brain Online ........................................................................................................................... 3 Flash My Brain On-the-Go .................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2: Browsing................................................................................................................................... 6 Main Menu and Library Browser......................................................................................................... 6 Settings ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 3: Learning.................................................................................................................................... 9 The Flash My Brain Learning Process ................................................................................................. 9 The Flash My Brain Study Mode........................................................................................................ 10 The Flash My Brain Games ................................................................................................................. 10 Advanced Options ............................................................................................................................... 12 Leitner Memorization .......................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 4: Creating .................................................................................................................................. 14 Creating Text Flashcards ..................................................................................................................... 14 Creating Multimedia Flashcards ........................................................................................................ 15 Languages.............................................................................................................................................. 17 Advanced Options ............................................................................................................................... 18 Importing Text ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 5: Printing ................................................................................................................................... 20 Printing Flashcards .............................................................................................................................. 20
Exporting Flashcards for iPods .......................................................................................................... 23 Putting iPod flashcards on your iPod................................................................................................ 24 Appendix A: Language Input ................................................................................................................. 25 OS X ........................................................................................................................................................ 25 Asian Languages .................................................................................................................................. 25 Cyrillic Languages................................................................................................................................ 25
Chapter 1: Getting Started
Printing Options ................................................................................................................................... 21
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Chapter 1: Getting Started Welcome to Flash My Brain! Flash My Brain provides everything you need to create, print, study and share beautiful and information-rich flashcards. Whether you’re a student studying for a standardized test, a tutor helping a student study or a lifelong learner pursuing a language, Flash My Brain can help you learn more, faster, and longer. This chapter will help you get started using Flash My Brain.
Flash My Brain Online
Flash My Brain Online is accessible from any internetconnected computer that supports Adobe Flash 9. After purchasing Flash My Brain at www.flashmybrain.com, you will receive an email indicating your account has been activating and confirming your account information. You can login to your account at http://www.flashmybrain.com/members/learn.php. Type in your username and password and click the Login button. If Flash 9 Player is already installed on your system, Flash My Brain will start loading and you’ll soon see the main menu. Proceed to the next chapters for more in-depth knowledge on
If you don’t yet have Flash 9 Player on your system, a message will appear redirecting you to Adobe’s website to download Flash 9 Player. Go to http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash. Follow the directions at that website to install Flash Player 9. When you’ve finished, return to http://www.flashmybrain.com/members/learn.php. Flash My Brain will load and you can get started using it.
Chapter 1: Getting Started
the various functions of Flash My Brain.
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If Flash My Brain still doesn’t start, mode of expression suggests using Firefox to run Flash My Brain. Download Firefox at http://www.getfirefox.com and install it. In Firefox, go to http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash again and install Flash 9 Player in Firefox. Finally, try http://www.flashmybrain.com/members/learn.php to start using Flash My Brain.
Flash My Brain On-the-Go
Flash My Brain On-the-Go is the offline version of Flash My Brain. With Flash My Brain Onthe-Go, you can study with Flash My Brain when disconnected from the internet, and still download from the Flash My Brain library when connected. This section describes the installation and launching of Flash My Brain On-the-Go.
Flash My Brain On-the-Go requires Adobe Apollo. This is a brand new technology from Adobe that enhances the features of Flash and enables Flash My Brain On-the-Go to upload and download files as you upload and download sets of flashcards rich in images and sounds. Windows users can download Adobe Apollo at http://www.adobe.com/go/getapollo. Mac OS X users can download Adobe Apollo at http://www.adobe.com/go/getapollo.
After installing Adobe Apollo, log in to your Flash My Brain account (http://www.flashmybrain.com/members/) and click the Download On-the-Go link.
Select the version of Flash My Brain On-the-Go you want to install. Windows users should
For each operating system, there are four varieties of Flash My Brain On-the-Go featuring different language sets. Unless you are learning an Asian language, select the General version. All versions of Flash My Brain On-the-Go include English, Latin letters, and International Phonetic Alphabet characters. •
Flash My Brain On-the-Go General includes Russian, Greek, Telugu, and Tibetan.
Chapter 1: Getting Started
download Windows versions and Mac users should download OS X versions.
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Flash My Brain On-the-Go Chinese includes Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional.
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Flash My Brain On-the-Go Japanese includes Japanese with hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
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Flash My Brain On-the-Go Korean includes Korean with hangul and hanja.
If you are learning Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, select the appropriate choice. Otherwise, choose Flash My Brain On-the-Go General. After downloading Flash My Brain On-the-Go, install it. Windows users can double click the downloaded file to start the automatic install process. OS X users, open the .dmg file and install the application like usual. The first time you run Flash My Brain, you need to activate it. Flash My Brain On-the-Go requires a one-time internet connection to configure itself and download the current online library index. Make sure you’re connected before attempting to activate Flash My Brain On-the-Go.
This is the activation screen. Type in your username and password and click Start Flash My Brain. A loading window will appear. Activation typically takes several seconds be patient. After the activation process finished, the activation screen will fade out and Flash My Brain On-the-Go will start in full. Proceed to the next chapters for more information
Chapter 1: Getting Started
on using Flash My Brain.
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Chapter 2: Browsing Main Menu and Library Browser
After starting up, Flash My Brain will show you the Library Browser. Here, you can access all the public flashcard sets or decide to create your own.
To start writing your own set of flashcards, click the Create New Set button on the bottom of the screen.
To find a cardset in the Flash My Brain library, click the relevant category to expose sub-categories and all the cardsets
Chapter 2: Browsing
in that category.
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When you select a cardset, several possible actions may appear. •
Learn – Start the Flash My Brain learning routine using the cardset selected.
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View – Browse the flashcards included in the cardset selected.
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Edit a Copy – Make a copy of the selected cardset and edit it.
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Edit – Edit the selected cardset.
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View Progress – View the flashcards learned so far in the selected cardset.
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Print – Starts the print process of the selected cardset.
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Delete – Deletes the selected cardset from the Flash My Brain library.
The following are only available in Flash My Brain On-the-Go. •
Remove – Removes the selected cardset from your offline Flash My Brain library.
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Upload – Uploads the selected cardset to the Flash My Brain library.
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Download – Downloads the selected cardset from the Flash My Brain Library.
Settings
Clicking the Settings button in the lower right of the Library Browser brings up the Settings menu. In this menu, you can change the way flashcards are presented in the learning mode: •
Flashcard with a hand holding it
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Flashcard
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Flashcard zoomed-in
You can also change the cardstock of the
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Blue lined
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Green lined
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Grid lined
Check the Use Leitner study routine checkbox if you want to study with the Leitner process when starting a new study session. (See Chapter 3 for more information.)
Chapter 2: Browsing
flashcards seen throughout Flash My Brain.
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The Clear All Offline Data button erases all saved data of flashcards and Flash My Brain user preferences. Flash My Brain On-the-Go requires a re-activation after offline data has been
Chapter 2: Browsing
cleared.
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Chapter 3: Learning The Flash My Brain Learning Process ensures that you learn all the material fully and maximizes your recall of the material. Flash My Brain minimizes guesswork and reinforces your knowledge. To start a study session in Flash My Brain, select a set of flashcards in the Library Browser. Click the Learn button and three options will appear. The first option starts or continues the Flash My Brain Learning Process, described below. The second option starts the study mode including all the flashcards in the set. The third option cycles through Flash My Brain’s memory games.
The Flash My Brain Learning Process
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First, a set number of cards (usually 6) are introduced to you, front and back. Study them carefully, and then proceed to the study mode.
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The study mode is just like studying flashcards in real life. You have a stack of shuffled flashcards and you draw from them to study one side while recalling the other side. After you feel comfortable with the flashcards in the deck so far, click the Quiz button.
A random game will appear and test your knowledge of the cards. If you perform well in the game, Flash My Brain returns to the first step, introducing new cards to you and adding them in the stack to be studied.
Chapter 3: Learning
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The Flash My Brain Study Mode
The Flash My Brain study mode simulates studying flashcards in real life. A stack of flashcards appears on the right. On the left, you can see a flashcard that you can flip by moving the mouse or using the arrow keys. Advance to the next card in the deck by clicking the mouse, or pressing the up, down, or Enter keys. If you know a flashcard, don’t bother flipping it. Advance to the next card. If you’re at all unsure, glance at the back before going to the next flashcard. Add more flashcards to your study deck by passing a quiz game. Click Quiz to start a game. You can always review all the cards you’ve learned so far by clicking the button on the bottom of the window, “View all learned cards”.
The Flash My Brain Games
There are five games in Flash My Brain’s study routine, all designed to enhance your recall in different ways. Match My Flashcard presents one card at a time and asks you to find the corresponding reverse side among several cards on the screen. Select the appropriate card to answer each query.
Several cards are presented face down and the user uncovers them to match corresponding fronts and backs.
Chapter 3: Learning
Flashcard Memory is like the conventional card game Memory.
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Flash My Brain-ionaire is a game show show-based game that simulates a multiple choice test. One flash card is presented and its reverse must be selected from four options.
One of these Flashcards is Not Like the Other presents six cards at a time, front and back. Five of these cards are either correctly matched or incorrectly matched. The user has to select the sixth incorrectly matched card.
Pickup My Brain presents many flashcards in an unruly pile. The user has to pick up a front and put it in one slot along the bottom, then find a corresponding back and put it in the other slot.
If you don’t like any of these games, simply click the Switch Game button and a different game
Chapter 3: Learning
will be presented to you.
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Advanced Options
In the study mode, click the Advanced Options button to access a menu with several options to tweak your learning experience.
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flashcard with a hand holding it
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flashcard
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flashcard zoomed-in
By clicking More and Fewer, you can increase or decrease the number of cards currently in your deck of flashcards. Start Over clears your learning session and restarts the learning process. You can change certain aspects of the learning process. •
Flash My Brain Learning process with intelligent shuffling is the default learning process. The deck of flashcards is shuffled based on Flash My Brain’s estimation of your
Chapter 3: Learning
You can change the way flashcards are presented in the learning mode:
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understanding of each individual flashcard. This judgment comes from your performance in the games and how much time you spend studying each flashcard. Skipping a flashcard implies you’ve mastered it, while carefully studying each side implies you want to reinforce it more. •
Flash My Brain Learning process with random shuffling. Use this option off for purely random shuffling of the active flashcards.
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Leitner memorization process. Select this option to convert your learning session to a Leitner session. In Leitner memorization, your strength on each card has six different ranks, and you have the opportunity to specify whether or not you know a card. See below for more information.
Auto-mode is activated by pressing the a-key. Flashcards will be presented one after the other, front and back automatically when this mode is activated. You can increase or decrease the speed of this routine with this slider. The bottom slider determines the delay before the appearance of the Quiz button. Move the slider to increase or decrease the time the user must study before the Quiz button appears.
Leitner Memorization
Sebastian Leitner describes a method to memorize and retain information in his book “How to Learn to Learn”, written in the early 70s. Flashcards begin at a bottom rank and ascend a rank every time you recognize them correctly. If you don’t recognize a flashcard, it returns to the bottom. Flash My Brain is more likely to show you cards that are lower ranked, so you learn the cards in the active deck steadily and evenly. The Flash My Brain Leitner process is as follows: The front of a card is shown to you. You visualize the other side and press the spacebar to check. Press Y to indicate you visualized it correctly. Press N to indicate you would like to review the back. Eventually you will have mastered all the cards in your deck To add cards, you can either play a game or add more cards in the Options screen.
Chapter 3: Learning
flashcard and the card will be presented front and
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Chapter 4: Creating Flash My Brain has two editors for creating flashcards. The Easy Editor is optimized for rapid creation of text-only flashcards. The Full Editor offers you all the tools you need to create multimedia flashcards that include text, graphics, images, and even sound. You can start creating your own set of flashcards by clicking the Create New Set button on the bottom of the Library Browser. This will start the Easy Editor. If you select a pre-existing set in the Library Browser, click the Edit button to start editing. (Note: If you are not the author of that set, you can Edit as a Copy. In Flash My Brain, no one can edit a set of flashcards but its original author.) If the set is all text, the Easy Editor will start. If it has multimedia elements, the Full Editor will start. You can always switch between the Easy Editor and the Full Editor by clicking the Switch button in the upper right of both editors.
Creating Text Flashcards
Making text flashcards in Flash My Brain is as easy as typing in a word processor. In the Easy Editor, flashcards are presented front and back at the same time. The front side appears on the left and the reverse side appears on the right. Click either side of the front card and start typing like you would in any application to start writing on the flashcard. The font size will adjust automatically as you add text. To adjust the font size manually, use the Font Size Up (A+) and Autosize button triggers with automatic resizing mechanism for that card.
Chapter 4: Creating
the Font Size Down (A-) buttons. The
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The buttons along the bottom control the creation and deletion of flashcards. Advance or rewind to different flashcards by pressing the Next Card or Previous Card buttons. You can also use the PgUp and PgDn keys. Hold down these buttons to advance through the set quickly. You can edit the properties of the flashcard set including its title and category by clicking the title of the set of flashcards. The set’s information card pops up, seen here on the right. In this window, you can edit the title, category, and description of the set. Hit OK to save your changes.
Creating Multimedia Flashcards
The Full Editor in Flash My Brain is similar to most computer drawing programs. When in the Easy Editor, you can access the Full Editor by clicking the Switch to Full Editor button in the upper right. Several drawing tools are available on the left, including a freehand tool, some shape tools, and text tools of varying sizes. The Arrow Tool lets you select and move parts of your drawing. The Line Tool draws straight lines. The Rect Tool and the Oval Tool draw shapes. The Large Text, Medium Text, and Small Text Tools draw textboxes of corresponding font sizes. The resulting textboxes can be adjusted in font, size, and location. The Eraser Tool erases parts of the drawing with a single click. Whatever part of the drawing is
The Color Palette is below the Tool Palette. Select one of the colors to draw in that color. You can flip the flashcard to edit the reverse side by clicking the miniature view of the reverse side that appears on the right hand side of the screen.
Chapter 4: Creating
under the eraser will glow blue. Click the mouse to delete it with the Eraser Tool.
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The buttons above the flashcard canvas allow you to create and delete flashcards, in addition to advancing and rewinding through current set of flashcards. The Clear button above the tool palette clears everything on the flashcard side currently being edited. The Undo button undoes the last action done to the flashcard side currently being edited. The Attach Image and Attach Sound buttons prompt you to select a multimedia file to add to your flashcards. The four template buttons along the bottom activate text templates with varying layouts. Selecting one erases the current card and replaces it with the template selected. You can edit the properties of the flashcard set including its title and category by clicking the title of the set of flashcards. The set’s information card pops up and you can edit the title,
Chapter 4: Creating
category, and description of the set in the same way that you can in the Easy Editor.
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Languages
In either editor, click the Languages button on the upper left to open the Languages dialog.
All of Flash My Brain’s language options will be listed. Select the language in which you’d like to make a set of flashcards. Flash My Brain will automatically load the font file needed. Click the Bilingual Mode checkbox if you plan on using International Phonetic Alphabet characters on one side of your flashcards. After making your choices, click the OK button. To type in your language, click the active flashcard and start typing. Make sure you have set different depending on your operating system.
Chapter 4: Creating
your operating system to the appropriate language input mode. The method for doing this is
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Advanced Options
In both the Easy Editor and the Full Editor, you can access the Advanced Card Settings screen by clicking the Advanced Options button in the upper right of the screen. Card stack reversible – When this checkbox is checked, the flashcards in the cardset will appear front and back first in the study mode. This is appropriate for vocabulary to practice a word from its definition, but not for addition, where the flashcard back “5” could be “2+3” or “1+4”. Swap – swaps the front and back sides on all cards in the cardset. Resize – Automatically resizes the text in all cards to be as big as possible. Merge – Opens up a dialog to select a cardset to merge with. Split – Splits up a set into two or more cardsets while preserving the original cardset. Import – Switches to the text importer to generate flashcards from CSV (comma separated
Chapter 4: Creating
values) files or otherwise text delimited material.
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Importing Text
Clicking the Import button in the editors’ Advanced Options menu brings up the Text Importer. In this screen, pre-formatted text of several flashcards can be instantly imported into a Flash My Brain stack of flashcards. A side delimiter is a character that distinguishes the front and back of a flashcard in a line of text. For example, if the side delimiter is a comma, the following are valid flashcards: •
The color of grass, green
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Hao jiu bu jian, I haven’t seen you in a while
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12 + 12, 24
Any occurrence of a side delimiter after the first will be ignored. (There are no three or four sided flashcards!) A line break symbol is a character that breaks up the text of one side of a flashcard into multiple lines. For example, if the line break symbol is the @ sign, the following are valid flashcards: •
Front of a card, Reverse of a card@second line of reverse side
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Ni hao, Hi@Hello
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Positive six@or@negative six, The square root of thirty-six
You can have as many line breaks as you would like. However, flashcards with many line breaks may be difficult to read as the resulting text will be small. To see a comprehensive example in Flash My Brain, click Show Example.
Add imported cards to deck will add the processed cards to the stack of flashcards you’re currently editing. Return to the Easy Editor by clicking the Return to Editor button in the upper right.
Chapter 4: Creating
To process the text inputted so far and preview the results, press Process.
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Chapter 5: Printing Flash My Brain features a flexible printing layout mode to help you print out your flashcards in exactly the way you want. To access Flash My Brain’s printing functions, select a flashcard set in the Library Browser and click Print.
Printing Flashcards
The Flash My Brain printing interface can be seen on the right. To start printing right away, follow this simple process. •
Select the printing format you want, such as Four 3”x5” C Cards or Business Card Stock.
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Click the Print Front button, click OK to printt all pages, and print out the front sides of the cards.
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Wait for your printer to finish and then reinsert your paper in your printer. Note that some printers print on the face face-down side of the inserted paper.
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Click the Print Backs button to print the rev reverse sides of the cards.
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When your printer is finished, you’ll have a hard copy of your flashcards to study!
On the left of the printing interface are buttons that change the printing template. •
Business Card Stock prints ten cards, five in each of two row rows. s. This template fits a
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One Card Per Page prints one giant flashcard per page.
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Three 3”x5” Index Cards prints three cards in the common index card form. Office supply stores offer fer cardstock for this as well.
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Four 3”x5” Index Cards prints four cards, two cards in each of two rows. This is another commonly available cardstock template.
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Small Cards prints eighteen small flashcards, six cards in each of three rows.
Chapter 5: Printing
common printable business cardstock purchasable in most office supply stores.
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Custom Format opens a window to make your own printing template. See below for more information.
Below these options are the Print Fronts and Print Backs buttons. These buttons start the printing process for the front sides and reverse sides of the flashcards. Before the printing starts, you can choose which pages you would like to print. The page on the right of the interface previews the printing settings of the flashcards about to be printed.
Printing Options
The printing interface offers several options to customize your printed flashcards. Below the print preview, there are options to customize the appearance of the individual flashcards. Invert reverse side – the reverse sides of the flashcards will be upside down, so you can turn the flashcards top-over bottom to flip them. Show card numbers – draws the number of each flashcard in the lower right of the flashcard. Draw borders of cards – draws the borders of the flashcards on the printed sheet to make cutting easier. Aside from the five printing templates, the Custom Format button enables you to create your own template. You can adjust each margin: top, bottom, right and left. You can set the number of card columns
Set the preview page height and width for an accurate page preview.
Chapter 5: Printing
and rows.
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Note that in Flash My Brain printing, the actual dimensions of the printed page are set in the print options specific to your operating system after you hit Print Fronts or Print Backs. For example, in Windows XP, after you hit print, the standard Windows Print dialog appears where you can select your printer. Clicking the Properties button brings up the Printer Properties dialog, where you can edit
Chapter 5: Printing
your paper dimensions under the Paper tab.
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Exporting Flashcards for iPods
Flash My Brain brings your flashcards to your portable electronics with its iPod functions.
Flash My Brain print interface includes the iPod functionality in Flash My Brain. Click the iPod to switch to from a paper template to an iPod one.
In the print preview, an iPod will show up previewing your iPod flashcards. Click the Previous Card, Next Card, and Flip buttons to navigate through your flashcards and preview them on the virtual iPod.
Under the iPod preview, there are three options to customize your set of iPod flashcards. Hide card numbers and title – when this is checked, the flashcard set name and card number,
Shuffle cards – when this is checked, two sets of your flashcards will be generated and shuffled together so the student does not get used to the flashcard order while studying. Card stock – These three radio buttons allow you to change the appearance of the iPod “card stock”.
Chapter 5: Printing
normally displayed along the bottom of the iPod’s screen, will not appear.
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Putting iPod flashcards on your iPod
When you are satisfied with the options for your iPod flashcards, click the Generate and Download button. Flash My Brain Online wil open a new window or tab. The iPod flashcards take a few minutes to generate. When they are finished, click the link that appears to download them. When the download is finished, find the downloaded file on your hard drive.
Unzip it into a folder with a program such as WinZip, WinRAR, or Stuffit. Note: Flash My Brain On-The-Go simply generates the folder on your desktop. Drag that folder into your My Pictures folder for PCs or your Pictures folder for Macs. Connect your iPod and start the iTunes application. With your iPod selected under Devices, click the Photos tab. Select the “Sync photos from” checkbox, and select My Pictures or Pictures from the popup menu next to the checkbox.
flashcard sets that appear. Click Apply to begin the copy process. Your flashcards will be transferred to your iPod. Disconnect your iPod and enjoy your Flash My Brain iPod flashcards!
Chapter 5: Printing
Check the checkbox next to the iPod
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Appendix A: Language Input OS X
For OS X, check your OS X documentation on International features. The following document http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/815518AA-7A2C-4C3B-9BE7229EF3E653FD/0/MacOSXIntnlSupport.pdf has more information.
Asian Languages
How to input Chinese in Windows http://www.newconcept.com/Reference/how_input_chinese.html This URL features a good tutorial on typing in Chinese http://www.biblioscape.com/tips/tip_020318.htm Windows XP Japanese Input - http://greggman.com/japan/xp-ime/xp-ime.htm Installing East Asian Language Support in Windows XP http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/asianlanguageinst allation_XP.html Handling Korean Text in Windows - www.cam.ac.uk/cs/docs/lang/l8/l8.pdf
Installation of Russian keyboard for Windows XP Professional http://www.linginfo.it/eng/support/help/02/03/ Cyrillic support in Windows XP - http://www.auburn.edu/forlang/russian/cyrillicsetup/cyrillic.html
Appendix A: Language Input
Cyrillic Languages
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