Exam revision strategy

I was chatting to a few students about their exam revision strategies. I brought up the fact that I had briefly seen on TV this morning how a school was making content/homework available via mp3 players/ipods. We also talked about programs that would read text back to you and create mp3’s from written text. One of the students stated that she had read her notes aloud and created mp3’s from this. She had loaded them to her ipod and was listening to them while she went for her daily walks etc. The walks are done with a study mate who has made these mp3’s as well.

She made all of the mp3’s about the same length and then created a playlist that alternated between revision notes and music. She stated that the object is to attempt to verbalise the content of the revision mp3 while the music track is playing. The idea of taking a partner doing the same thing on the walk was so that others walking the lake might think that they were talking to each other instead of themselves.

The idea of doing this while exercising is interesting as the increased blood flow would provide extra oxygen to her brain, facilitating the learning process.

She was very interested in the text to speech facilities as she tired of her own voice. Being able to control the tempo of reading and so perhaps creating some rhythm may also help.