I’m back in California, after spending the earlier half of this week visiting colleges in Boston. I fortuitously arrived in Boston only several hours before the Red Sox won Game 7 and clinched their spot in the World Series, so my MIT hosts had plenty to be happy about.

The best way to celebrate the Game 7 victory was inside an elevator.

I had a great time in Boston and it feels like a great place to be a college student. My visit confirmed my suspicions that MIT seems like a great fit for me.

So anyways, I flew back on Wednesday, the first day of the World Series. The tension ran extra high on my flight between Boston and Denver (ergo Colorado) - there was lots of talk of “fleeing Boston.” United was cool enough to patch in a live but crackly transmission of the game through the in-flight radio.

With all this flying time, I had some downtime to work on Quizlet (for some reason, I can never do actual work on planes). I’ve got a complete copy of Quizlet running on my laptop, so I can work on it compulsively whenever and wherever I please. What did I do this time? A lot of really good small stuff:

1. Navigation amelioration: I’ve gotten rid of those easy-to-miss links added to the main navigation bar on certain pages, and replaced them with a sweet second row of navigation below the title of each page. The Familiarize, Learn, Test, Export, My Groups, Dashboard, and Group pages all got the treatment. Hopefully this will make it easier to navigate Quizlet.
2. I replaced the Answers.com lookup links with inside-Quizlet lookup links on the Set page. Activate the links by clicking on the little icon next to each term. Just like the Create Set page and the Quizmarklet, a box will pop onto with a list of definitions. So if you see a word you like on someone else’s set, you can click on the icon and save it into one of your own sets. Notice the linked vocabulary words in this post - they’re set up with this feature as well. Très cool!
3. You can now delete your account if you need to. There’s a link in your dashboard. The delete page gives you the option of leaving your old sets for other people to use, or deleting everything. For security, you’ll need to type in your password before permanently deleting your account.
4. I upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.3.1 and moved the RSS feeds to Feedburner (the old feed URLs will automatically redirect). You can now subscribe to this blog by email if you like. I guess you could consider this blog the official Quizlet newsletter…
5. A few speed improvements here and there. I’m aware of intermittent speed problems, and they are being addressed.

Meanwhile…

Quizlet Queries for Quid has had a few interesting twists in the past few days. First, two of Quizlet’s projects are now fully funded and complete! Mississippi’s Bay-Waveland Middle School will be getting a LCD new projector and a fifth grade class in the Bronx will be getting six Scrabble games. These proposals were brought to life in part by Quizlet users! (other people not from Quizlet contributed too.) To date, we’ve raised $550. Impressive…But there’s still $1,962 to go!

I’ve added another proposal to the list to keep us on track for our goal of $2512. This time, we’re helping another hurricane-impacted school (this time in Louisiana) get seven Scrabble sets. I’m working on finding more projects I’d like to support - if you browse through the site and find one you like, post it in the comments. Donate now by clicking on the thermometer and clicking Fund Now on one the proposals in the list. And teachers, submit a proposal to the site and I’ll be happy to post it under the Quizlet Queries for Quid challenge. Man, this DonorsChoose thing is addictive - even Stephen Colbert is doing it now!

Now, my first college application is due Thursday, so I’m going to go finish that…

It’s been a full two years since I first had my little “inventor’s moment.” I was pacing around my living room, having my dad call out vocabulary words and responding with their definitions. It was an inefficient and tedious. It hit me that I could make the process more fun and much faster by creating a computer program to replace my dad. So I built a prototype. It worked beautifully, so I passed it around to a few friends, and soon enough I was spending all my free time building the site.

Fast forward two years, and Quizlet is a worldwide operation. More than two million terms have been entered and studied on Quizlet. Right now there are 61,763 registered users. I find it hard to wrap my head around that number. If all the Quizlet users got together, we’d fill Yankee Stadium and still have a few thousand people left over. And on recent weekdays, close to 1,000 people have been signing up per day. That’s like my entire high school registering itself every day.

So to celebrate Quizlet’s birthday, I added an oft-requested feature to the site: online status. If you’ve been on Quizlet in the last five minutes, a little “on” icon will appear next to your username on these pages: Dashboard, Group, Private Messages, and Set pages. Here is what it looks like: . If you’re offline, no icon will appear.

If you would prefer not to show your status, I’ve added an option to the Preferences page. If you uncheck the “Show online indicator” box, no one will ever be able to see whether you are online or not. By the way, you can always access this page by looking in the top-right corner of the page for the “(prefs)” link.

And unrelatedly…

On Sunday I’m taking off for a college visit to MIT and Harvard. My first application (MIT early action) is due in 13 days! I’ll be getting an inside peek at the two schools, as I’ll be staying with current students and attending classes. If anyone is in the Boston area and wants to meet up (i.e. show a California kid around!), send me a message! I fly back Wednesday, so it’s not a big time window…

Lastly, together we’ve raised $510 for school supplies with the Quizlet Queries for Quid program. It’s a decent sum, but I know we can do better. So don’t hesitate to donate right here, right now.

Unfortunately, one of the proposals (the one to give vocabulary cartoon books to students in Chicago) has expired because it didn’t get funded in time. People who have already donated should now have the option of redirecting their funding to other proposals. To replace that one, I’ve added a great new one that will buy the world’s greatest game for different students in Chicago.

Also, the proposal to buy an LCD projector for a school in Mississippi (the proposal closest to my heart, and the one to which I donated $400), only has 18 days left to raise $911! If we all work together I have no doubt that we can pull that together. If you’re a student and don’t have a credit card, ask your parents if they can help you out. Any donation, no matter how small, helps a lot!

Thank you, everyone. Quizlet is the greatest adventure I’ve ever been on, and you’re all a part of it!

It’s one of those days when I release a bunch of cool stuff!

But before I blow you away, let me remind you that I’m still soliciting donations for the Quizlet Queries for Quid school supply program. We need your help to make it actually happen! The vocabulary cartoon book proposal is about to expire, so your donations can’t wait. Thank you!

I made a video of most of it so you don’t have to look at the boring text below.

Here they are, in order of awesomeness (highest to lowest):

1. dictionary lookup feature! - on the Create Set and Edit Set pages, you can now click the little icon to define the term you just typed in. It will pop up a list of definitions, you choose one, and then click Use Selected Definition, and watch as the definition is filled in for you! If you already have a definition filled in, it will add the definition after a comma.
2. You can now disable the live discusison feature on your sets and groups if you like. Group administrators can go to the bottom of their group pages and uncheck the “Enable live discussion” box under “Admin Settings.”
3. I added a new Frequently Asked Questions page. Post a comment if you think I’ve missed something.
4. The symbols box is now available in Private Messages.
5. Other small bugfixes. (obligatory last item)

Let me know if you like it in the comments!

This is the original QQQ post. For the latest on this fundraising effort, click here.

I’m excited to announce the Quizlet Queries for Quid program. It’s a donation drive to buy materials for deserving schools all over the country.

A couple days ago I found this website, DonorsChoose.org. It’s really an amazing and unique place. It allows individual teachers to request donations for supplies and materials in their classrooms. For example, a teacher might ask for a new rug for a classroom’s reading center. Every teacher’s proposal is handled directly by the site; the teacher requests a specific product, and the DonorsChoose staff handles all the price negotiation and purchasing, then sends the materials to the teacher’s school. Thus, it’s very hard to perpetrate a fraud, because the DonorsChoose staff makes sure every proposal is buying educational supplies AND getting shipped to a school.

Individuals and organizations get to choose which proposals they donate to. Right now, DonorsChoose is running a contest for blogs to compete to get their readers to donate to causes they select. Incidentally, the blog that’s winning the contest is winning because its writer promised to shave her head if her readers donated $30,000. They did, and she did. Now, I’m not going to shave my head, but I am going to enter the Quizlet blog into this contest!

The first three projects I hand-picked because they concerned themselves with areas close to my heart (vocabulary and technology). Here are the causes:

• Help a computer classroom in Mississippi get an LCD projector.
• Buy Vocabulary Cartoon books for 8th graders in a Chicago school with 93% low-income students.
• Get a color laser printer for a school in Mississippi.

I decided to keep the list limited to 3 proposals to increase the chances that each of them would be highly successful. I may add more later as time passes.

To kick-start the competition, I just donated $400! That’s 16% of my entire goal of $2512.35, or the cost to fund my first three project choices. Surely the combined forces of Quizlet can reach this modest goal. I dare y’all!

How to Donate

Go to the project page and select one of the proposals in the list. When you find one you like, click on the Fund Now button. They’ll take credit cards, debit cards, and checks. Sorry, no Paypal or Google Checkout. Thanks!

I chose the two proposals from Mississippi because I worked in the city of Waveland as an Americorps volunteer this summer. I was working to build houses for people whose houses were washed away in Hurricane Katrina. As I wrote before, conditions are getting better but it’s got a long way to go. The people there were unforgettably friendly and hospitable, even in their luckless situation. Here are photos from my time in Mississippi.

My friend Jenny and me hammering under a house.

Bay-Waveland Middle School, the recipient school of the LCD projector, is only 15 miles away from where I lived this summer, and even closer to the houses I worked on. You wouldn’t expect it, but it’s a magical place with a lot of heart; I can’t wait to go back there someday. Perhaps some of you noticed the bracelet I was wearing on the last blog post. It was part of a program by Hancock County, the same county as Bay-Waveland Middle School, to give volunteers discounts at local stores.

So now I ask you to join me in supporting these schools by donating now. If you’re too young, ask your parents if they can help. Any amount is hugely helpful! Tell them it’s tax-deductible. With today’s passing of the 55,000 registered user mark on Quizlet, I hope that there’s enough generosity between y’all to even surpass my goal of $2512.

Not convinced? Let me throw in a few freebies. First, for anyone who donates any amount, I will remove Quizlet’s ads for life on your account. Also, I’ll place a special icon (see image) on your dashboard and list you (only if you want to) in a future blog post. You’ll be the envy of all your friends! To see how it might look, check out the Quizlet Creator icon on my own dashboard on Quizlet. Fashionable, ain’t it?

(If you’re not a Quizlet user, you can definitely still donate!)

Also, DonorsChoose.org is running a contest between various sites and blogs to see who can get their users to donate the most. I entered Quizlet(’s blog) in LitLiberation category. Let’s grab that #1 spot!

So who chose such a silly contest name, Quizlet Queries for Quid? Well…I did. It was my poor attempt at being comically alliterative. For your information, Quid is a slang term for the British currency, the Pound Sterling. So the phrase pathetically translates to “Requests for Money.” Clever, I know.

Lastly, to all the teachers using Quizlet: You should check out this website! If any of you create a proposal on the site, let me know and I’ll be happy to add your cause to Quizlet’s list.

One last time - the Quizlet Queries for Quid is here!

I’ve been noticing something lately, and it’s been in the back of my mind long enough to write a blog post about:

The more my programming and general computer skills advance, the further from an “average” user my perspective becomes. In other words, my spectacular computer talents give me a slanted and potentially puzzling approach toward building Quizlet’s interface. It’s kind of like when scientists start talking to you about their projects, and they use all sorts of jargon and science-speak and you have no idea what they’re talking about!

Why is this a problem for Quizlet? Things that seem obvious to me aren’t obvious to regular users. And so it’s easier for me to build a confusing interface that seems perfectly obvious to me but perfectly ridiculous to others. I think so far I’ve done a good job on Quizlet, keeping it simple and not letting its interface get too convoluted. But I could be flagrantly mistaken, and have no idea! The horror!

So now here are a few questions. Let’s call it a report card on how I’m doing. What’s confusing to you about Quizlet? What processes should be simplified? What have you had to spend some time to understand? Or is it just amazing and simple and perfect?

Thanks y’all!

P.S. I should stop it with all the Photobooth pictures