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Any third grader drilling away on number facts knows all about flash cards. This time-honored pedagogical tool has gotten more people through school than probably just about anything else, for one simple reason: it works. There's no substitute for drilling on facts like you can do with flash cards. So how do you improve on a technology that presumably is as old as the written word?

The Mnemosyne Project has one answer, with their automated flash card-like tool. Like traditional flash cards, you can enter the question and answer and then drill on those facts until you master them. Going one better, though, it also leverages off the smarts of your computer. After all, it can keep track of how well you are learning the stuff you're working on, and make sure that it cycles the trickier stuff through more often, letting you hit the hard stuff harder. It also supports pictures, sounds, and three-way flash cards, that can ask two different questions at once.

Mnemosyne is a free download. The latest release is available for Linux and Windows, and a previous version for Mac is also out there.

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If you enjoy music, you may want to know more about it. For some folks, making music means firing up their iPod or turning on the radio, but for others, they'd like to participate instead of just watching the process as a spectator sport.

You can read a lot about music and learn tons about its history, but when it comes to actually making music, it's often easiest to learn with a teacher or tutor working with you. Things like recognizing intervals by ear require that you listen to somebody play a piano or some other instrument so that you can actually hear the difference between a Minor Third and Major Third, or correctly identify a Perfect Fourth ("Here comes the bride…") or a Major Sixth (N-B-C). You can't do that yourself, because you're learning, so you may be out of luck. Or you can try LenMus.

This free application can help you to listen and identify intervals, chords, and more. In addition, it's got a built-in score editor, so you can practice such things as writing key signatures and simple musical lines.

LenMus is a Windows application.

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I'll take "Potent Potables" for $200, Alex.

If you understand that cryptic remark, then you may be a candidate for Stu's Double Jeopardy. It's a free downloadable adaptation of the popular TV game show for use in educational settings. While there is no affiliation between the publishers and the Jeopardy folks, the game is quite similar. Choose from different categories, and given the answers, contestants come up with the questions. You can play as individuals, or as teams—up to six at a time.

Teachers can create their own question files, choosing categories and questions that serve to reinforce classroom learning, or general knowledge areas. You can get started by downloading selections from a list of prefab questions as well. There are "Daily Doubles" that allow players to wager points on upcoming questions. Incorporate MP3 files to add sound to your questions. If you don't have time for a full game, you can create scaled-down versions that include only ten or twenty questions instead of the normal 30.

Stu's Double Jeopardy is a Windows application.

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The most prominent item on the wall of any high school (or college) Chemistry classroom or lab is a great big Periodic Table of the Elements. Even though the chart itself is huge, the amount of information it actually conveys is pretty small. After all, with well over a hundred elements, the overall space is cut up into relatively small slices.

Periodic Table is a free Windows application that gives you a lot more info than that great big chart. Along with the expected chemical symbol and atomic number, you can check out all the vital stats: atomic weight, boiling- and melting point, electron configuration, and more. In addition, it has built-in search capabilities as well: look for elements based on name, symbol, or even properties like its atomic radius.

Periodic Table doesn't cost anything—financially—to download and use, but that doesn't mean it comes without responsibilities: you're required to embrace personal growth, act responsibly toward the environment, and treat others with respect.

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The easiest way to learn a language is to be born into a culture that speaks that language. That's fine, but not so flexible. You can sit through hours and hours of class, or spend a small fortune on tutoring or even software tools that can help you. Are there any alternatives to these?

How about the free Interlex tool? A Windows application, Interlex lets you create vocabulary lists in any of several languages. Not just a listing, it then allows you to drill on your newly-learned words. The authors claim that just 20 minutes use a day will dramatically improve your mastery of your new language. You can also import word lists from any tool you may currently be using. It supports multiple keyboards, so you can easily use non-English keyboards, or you can add language-specific characters on your English keyboard.

You should be able to run Interlex with any Win32 version of Windows, from Win95 on up through Vista.

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Did you sleep through high school physics class? Did you even show up? Physics isn't everybody's cup of tea, but that may be because it wasn't taught right. Unlike biology, where dissecting frogs is part of the drill, or chemistry, where evacuating the lab because of some foul smell is a regular occurrence, physics should be fun. After all, where else can you play with toy cars and watch springs for academic credit. But we digress.

Phun is a 2D physics sandbox that lets you create a virtual workspace to play with simple machines and forces applied to them. Build your own contraptions and see how they work. Make them go faster or slower. See what happens when you change the load on your machine. It's so much fun you might forget that you're doing real physics here. Oh yeah, you can let the kids work with it too. Who knows—maybe by the time they get to high school, they'll be eager to get into the lab.

Phun is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows systems.

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While FunBrain is a web site, in some ways it's more like a collection of games and tools for kids. Whether you're looking for math games, reading activities, or just plain fun, there's probably something here to appeal to you. Play games like Math Baseball (practice your arithmetic while scoring a home run), help Pearl and Flora with plural forms of words, and more. Web books and comics help with reading practice. There are also activities for younger kids, so everybody can have fun and learn at the same time.

FunBrain features a fair number of advertisements, so parents will want to keep an eye on their kids as they move through the site (but you already monitor your little ones when they're online, right?). They've got a good Privacy Policy in place, so you can feel safe while you're on the site.

FunBrain is a free service. Most of its content should be available for visitors with modern web browsers. Certain activities may require Flash or other extensions to your browser.

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Have you ever read the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon? Armed with only a simple crayon, Harold creates a whole new world, where what he draws comes to life. You can have a similar experience with Crayon Physics.

With Crayon Physics, you create a world on your system that responds to forces as real objects do. Draw a box on the screen, and it "falls" toward the bottom of the screen, as if pulled by gravity. You can have free-falling objects like this, or by inserting pivot points, you can create levers that redirect forces in directions you want them to go. As a game, you move a ball around on screen, allowing it to collect stars. Create ramps, drop things to push them along, the sky's the limit of what you can do to manipulate your new world here. You'll probably have best results with a stylus, although you can still draw things with your mouse.

There is a deluxe version in the works (watch the video to see what's in store) that hasn't dropped yet.

Crayon Physics is a Windows application and requires Win98 or later.

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Everything's all about computer keyboards, but does anybody really know how to type? Back in the day, you could take Typing in high school, although as a guy, you might have been looked down as taking a class "for girls". In retrospect, that's probably the most important class I ever took. With the importance of typing, the most significant method of data entry out there, it's amazing how many people still use the tried-and-true methods of hunt-and-peck, or two-finger typing. Certainly not the most efficient way to get things done.

You may be beyond the age where the remedial typing class is an option for you, but you would still like to become at least a bit more proficient at typing. Maybe you'd like to give Stamina Typing Tutor a try.

Stamina Typing Tutor supports multiple languages and layouts, so whether you're trying to wrestle the traditional QWERTY keyboard to the ground, or want to try something more exotic like a Dvorak layout, it's all here for you. There's even an alternative method that they suggest that they claim will lead to a reduction in hand stress. Drills are provided to help you focus on particular skills. It keeps track of how you're doing, so you can watch your progress over time, and see how much faster you're getting.

If you're tired of thinking faster than you can type, Stamina Typing Tutor maybe just they help you're looking for.

Stamina Typing Tutor is a Windows application, and will run on just about any Win32 platform, from Win95 or NT on up to Vista.

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Over the past several years, there has been a rapid increase in the amount of online course material available. Many colleges have dramatically increased the number of classes provided online as a way to stretch resources, as well as allowing more independently paced study. Re-entry students who have full-time jobs, for example, can "attend" class during evenings and weekends, whereas they might not be able to come to a physical classroom during the day in the middle of a work week.

There are many challenges that come up in making online classes informative and relevant for the needs of their students. One way to try to make the online learning experience better for students is through tools like Moodle.

Moodle calls itself a "course management system." It provides a framework for creating Internet-based courses of instruction and the supporting web sites. Based on a philosophy called "social constructionist pedagogy", which takes advantage of interactions among the community as well as content provided by the instructor, Moodle allows instructors to create opportunity for rich interaction, including elements such as wikis, forums, and blogs, as well as quizzes, surveys, and other activities.

There is extensive documentation available on the Moodle website. If you are responsible for the design or execution of online instruction, it may be worth your while to take a look and examine in depth the types of resources that Moodle can make available for you.

Moodle is available both for Windows and Mac systems running OS X, as well as systems running various flavors of Linux–basically any system that can support PHP, and requires a database such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.

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