📇 How to create a Flashcards activity

The Flashcards template is a classic, highly effective study tool designed for vocabulary building, self-testing, and rapid recall. It presents students with a double-sided card containing a question, term, or image on the front, and the corresponding answer or definition on the back.

In this article:

• How is the Flashcards activity played?

• How and what do you type into Edit content for Flashcards?

• Where can I find some more examples?

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How the activity is played

The game displays a deck of cards that students can flip through interactively.

• The front: The card shows a prompt, such as a question, foreign language word, or a visual clue.

• The flip: The student clicks or taps the card to spin it around and reveal the correct answer on the back side.

• Navigation: Students use arrow keys or on-screen buttons to discard cards they have mastered or move to the next item in the deck.

• Completion: Once all flashcards have been reviewed, students can see their completion time, choose to shuffle the deck, or restart the activity.

  

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Creating your Flashcards activity

1. Click Create Activity and choose Flashcards.

   
    

2. Add your content:

   • Front: Enter the prompt, term, or question you want students to see first.

   • Back: Enter the definition, answer, or translation that should appear on the reverse side.

3. Optional: Click the image icon on either the front or back column to include visual graphics. This is highly recommended for early readers or anatomy identification.

4. Click Add an item or press Enter to add the next flashcard to your deck.

5. Click Done. Wordwall will compile your pairs into an interactive deck.

   
    

6. Scroll down to Visuals to add a creative style to your activity, or tailor the difficulty in the Options panel below the activity:

   

   • Timer

     • None: No time limit is enforced, allowing students to review their flashcards completely at their own pace without clock pressure.

     • Count up: Displays a stopwatch that tracks exactly how long it takes for a student to work their way through the entire deck.

     • Count down: Sets a strict time limit (e.g., 5 minutes) to challenge rapid-fire recall and quick mental processing.

   • Random:

     • Shuffle item order: When checked, this randomises the distribution sequence so the flashcard deck presents itself in a different order every time it is launched.

     • Automatically proceed after marking: If enabled, the activity will instantly advance to the next card as soon as the current one has been flipped and evaluated.

   • Repeat cards:

     • Repeat cards until all correct: Loops any missed or incorrectly answered cards back into the deck, requiring students to repeat them until they get them right. This is excellent for mastery learning.

     • Each card only once: Every flashcard is presented exactly one time, regardless of whether the student knew the answer or not.

   • Marking:

     • None: No visible grading or validation marks are shown on the cards.

     • Tick/Cross: Displays a clear check mark (✔) or cross (✖) to give students instant visual feedback on their recall accuracy.

   • End of Game

     • Show answers: Gives students a comprehensive summary to review the full list of front-and-back pairs once the entire activity ends.

   • Saving options

     • Apply to this activity: Saves these specific choices only for the activity you are currently editing.

     • More: Click this drop-down to find:

       • Set as default for template: Saves these settings as your standard configuration for every future activity you create using the Flashcards template.

       • Revert to default: Clears any custom changes you’ve made to this panel and returns the settings to your own previously saved personal defaults.

       • Revert to author's setting: Restores the activity to the original configuration used by the creator of a community resource.

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Creating Flashcards with AI

You don't need to be a prompt expert to use our AI. It is designed to be intuitive and accessible directly from the activity creator.

1. Click Create Activity and select Flashcards.

   
    

2. Look for the ✨ Generate with AI button (magic wand icon) at the top right of the content table.

   
    

3. Enter your content:

   • Topic: Type a subject like "French Vocabulary for Food" or "Geometric Shapes."

   • Text / Notes: Paste notes or a summary passage. The AI will distill the definitions onto card backs and pair them with matching vocabulary terms on the front.

   • File: Upload a PDF or Word doc. Wordwall AI will analyze the text and automatically break your study material down into concise front-and-back study pairs.

4. Click Generate. Review the generated flashcard sets, make any manual tweaks, and hit Done.

   

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Need inspiration?

Some examples of Flashcards activities have been created by our users and shared with the Wordwall resource community.