Do you know your Algeria from your Angola? Boost your knowledge of location with Brainscape

We all know that Geography is about a lot more than flags, maps and capital cities. However knowledge of where countries are is important for everyone who is interested about the world; for geographers it is fundamental.Brainscape is an excellent web tool which allows users to test their knowledge and improve this over a short period of time. Using the tool on Windows allows free but limited content. The free iPad app also offers the following content: African countries, Asian countries and currencies of the world. Other regions can be purchased.

This is one of the most simple and straightforward revision apps I have used. Students choose what to study from the main menu and the tool presents a series of flash cards. It asks students to locate a country and once they have decided on the location, the tool reveals the correct answer. The user needs to be honest and rate how well they knew the answer was by choosing from the options below the map: 1 (red) means "not at all" and 5 (blue) means "perfectly". Each card is categorised with a colour according to the rating and the red/orange cards are then shown more frequently than the blue/green countries.

The repetition of those countries the students find harder to locate is very effective and progress can be monitored on a bar at the top of the screen. Personally I found it quite addictive and hopefully students will be motivated and encouraged by how much they can remember in a relatively short period of time. It would particularly appeal to visual learners and it also helps students memorise information which is a useful skill.

One other thing: it reinforces the message that Africa is NOT a country!