AI vs. manual flashcard creation: Why you need both for 100% accuracy

Digital flashcards are incredibly useful tools for memorizing large amounts of information before your exams or classes. They let you use active recall and spaced repetition methods, two scientifically proven learning techniques that turn forgetful frustration into long-term memory. 🧠

There are many apps and tools out there that can create flashcards in a matter of seconds, saving you hours' worth of time. But there’s a catch: relying solely on AI is error-prone, since it may not capture information perfectly. AI-only flashcard apps also lack flexibility, since they don’t allow you to select the most important areas you want the card to focus on.

As one Reddit user writes:
“I found tons of AIs that make flashcards starting from PDF files; however, many times flashcards are really inefficient and tons of content gets lost.”

As with AI, manual methods also have their pros and cons. Our goal at Voovo is to combine the best of both worlds and give students the right tools for their studies, ensuring the information is always accurate, and the learning is as efficient as possible. 🚀

In this blog post, we explain how. 

The pros and cons of AI-only flashcard app creation

By now, everyone has heard about the advantages of AI. AI flashcard tools, in particular, are game-changers for learning: they create study materials in seconds, help personalize your learning, integrate powerful techniques to boost your memory and can help you pass your most-feared exams.

However, there are some downsides to using AI-only tools without manual input. Let’s see what they are!

Inaccurate or misunderstood information 🤯

Medical concepts often have specific details that AI might miss. Since AI is also notorious for ‘hallucination’ (incorrect or misleading results) and its struggle to grasp subtle nuances, it can lead to inaccurate flashcards, if left unchecked by a human.

This is just one example. 👇

Wrong difficulty level 📈

AI doesn’t know your current knowledge level. If you don’t have full control over setting the difficulty level, you can end up with flashcards that are either too easy or too hard for you.

Lack of creativity in flashcards 💤

Many AI tools can generate simple question-and-answer flashcards, but that’s not enough to make them ‘memorable’.  Flashcards that use engaging formats and combine images and text help you retain more information than simple text. 

Too generic flashcards due to the lack of customizability 📋

Bulk-generating flashcards from lengthy materials might sound time-efficient, but without customization, these flashcards become generic and ineffective. You end up wasting time studying irrelevant details instead of focusing on what matters to you.

Asking the wrong questions ❌

AI can’t guess what questions will be asked during your exam, or what typical exam questions are in your school. This can lead to wasted hours due to studying answers to the ‘wrong’ questions. 

Key lessons from manual methods we can incorporate into digital learning

Sure, manual flashcard creation will soon be a thing of the past. Whether you make them in Google Docs, Word, or on paper, it’s a time-consuming, frustrating, and inefficient process, and the cards are difficult to update or share. 

But this method still has a lot to teach us about the learning process. We can take these insights and incorporate them into digital flashcard creation.  

Deeper processing 🤔

The act of physically writing/typing out and organizing information forces you to engage in deeper cognitive processing. This helps you better comprehend the material and establish connections between parts of the information on your own.

Organization and planning skills 📝

Manually organizing information for flashcards needs a lot of planning and structure on your side. This helps you develop better organization and study planning skills in general.

Self-reliance and independent thinking 💡

Manual methods encourage self-reliance and independence in learning. It puts you in control of the learning process so you don’t fully rely on the app or tool you’re using.

Personalized learning materials 🧬

Manual features in flashcard apps let you personalize your learning material. You can tailor the format, content, and structure to fit your specific needs and learning style.

Let’s see how you can overcome these limitations using AI and manual features in Voovo! 

Voovo combines the power of AI with the flexibility of manual inputs

Creating effective flashcards for your studies requires a combination of efficiency, accuracy, and customizability. Yes, AI is great at saving time for you, but its accuracy is not always 100%. 

We’ve experienced this struggle first-hand. This is why we decided to combine the two methods in Voovo, giving you the chance to benefit from the speed of AI but at the same time, customize your flashcards too.

Here’s how you can edit your Voovo flashcards

As a Voovo user, you can upload one picture, paragraph, or table. This means you get full control: you can decide what the card should focus on and edit it manually or use your own voice to record a specific question for each flashcard. You can also easily add your insights and explanations, transforming your flashcards into comprehensive learning tools, while gaining a deeper understanding of the material. 

You won’t be overwhelmed by the amount of information either — as opposed to traditional AI models, where you can upload a hundred-page PDF to create a ton of generic flashcards. 

And there’s more! With Voovo’s selection tools, you can make flashcards that perfectly match your current level of the subject. The app lets you hand-select the text boxes you want to be quizzed on and select how many items you want to include on the flashcard. This personalized approach helps you optimize your study time by focusing on areas that require the most attention.

This way, using Voovo allows you to combine the power of AI with the cognitive ability of the human brain, for flashcards that actually work for you. 

To see how Voovo combines AI and manual features, check out our video: