Flash cards are a pretty common tool for learning languages. But what if you want to learn a sign language? I’ll tell you. Take a paper flash card and write down the word or phrase that you want to learn on one side. Now turn the flash card and put a video that shows how the word or phrase is “spoken” onto the other side. Wait a second …
Paper may have some shortcomings here. Luckily, there’s software that can help you out with digital flash cards that can handle audio and video as well. Alas! My beloved H5P offers a content type called Dialog Cards, but it cannot handle videos. Yet! Have a look at what feature I have just completed in my spare time …
Might not only be useful for sign language, but also for referee signals in sports, flag alphabets, tie knots, … Anything that could benefit from more dynamics than images can offer.
The feature seems to working, although I have not yet tested it on all major browsers and operating systems. Also, please don’t expect it to pop up in the official version of Dialog Cards within the next couple of days. First of all I don’t know if the feature will be accepted, and furthermore the H5P core team is very busy finishing other things and will probably not have time to do a code review soon.
Code: branch on github (until included in official version)
Credit where credit is due
Sure, H5P lists all the license information anyway, but why not mention here that the videos that I used were created by Henrike Maria Falke and are licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license?
I got the inspiration for adding the feature to H5P Dialog Cards from Sebastian Morr aka @blinry. He created a script that can pull resources from SignDict, a video dictionary for sign language, and automatically create flash card sets for the tool Anki.
Hmm, there’s no such script for H5P Dialog Cards yet … 😉