Quizlet

Quizlet is a multi-national American company that provides tools for studying and learning. It was founded in October 2005 by Andrew Sutherland, who at the time was a 15-year old student, and released to the public in January 2007. Quizlet's primary products include digital flash cards, matching games, practice electronic assessments, and live quizzes. In 2017, 1 in 2 high school students used Quizlet. As of December 2021, Quizlet has over 500 million user-generated flashcard sets and more than 60 million active users.
Company History
Quizlet was founded in 2005 by Andrew Sutherland as a studying tool to aid in memorization for his French class, which he claimed to have "aced". Quizlet's blog, written mostly by Andrew in the earlier days of the company, claims it had reached 50,000 registered users in 252 days online. In the following two years, Quizlet reached its 1,000,000th registered user.
Until 2011, Quizlet shared staff and financial resources with the Collectors Weekly website.
In 2011, Quizlet added the ability to listen to content using text-to-speech. In August 2012, it released an app for the iPhone and iPad and shortly afterward one for Android devices.
In 2015, Quizlet announced raising $12 million from Union Square Ventures, Costanoa Venture Capital, Altos Ventures, and Owl Ventures to expand its digital study tools and grow internationally.
Quizlet hired Matt Glotzbach as CEO in May 2016 and launched a redesign in August 2016. Also in 2016, Quizlet launched "Quizlet Live", a real-time online matching game where teams compete to answer all 12 questions correctly without an incorrect answer along the way.
In 2017, Quizlet created a premium offering called "Quizlet Go" (later renamed "Quizlet Plus"), with additional features available for paid subscribers. Glotzbach announced in 2018 that Quizlet would be opening offices in Denver, Colorado in 2018, announcing "a big vision at Quizlet to provide the most intelligent study tools in the world, and our expansion into Denver, a city with incredible tech ingenuity, will help us more quickly build the next generation of learning tools used by students everywhere".
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Glotzbach announced he was opening Quizlet's premium service, Quizlet Teacher, for free to all users who have an account registered as a teacher.
Quizlet made its first acquisition in March 2021, with the purchase of Slader, which offered detailed explanations of textbook concepts and practice problems, and eventually incorporated it into its paid platform, Quizlet Plus.
In November 2022, Quizlet announced a new CEO, Lex Bayer, the former CEO of Starship Technologies. In March 2023, Quizlet started to incorporate AI features with the release "Q-Chat", a virtual AI tutor powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT API. Quizlet launched four additional AI powered features in August 2023 to assist with student learning.
Study modes and games
As a memorization tool, Quizlet lets registered users create sets of terms and definitions customized for their own needs. These sets of terms can then be accessible to students by studying a variety of modes.
Flash Cards
This mode is similar to paper flashcards. Users are shown a flashcard for each term, which they can flip over by clicking, using the arrow keys, or the space bar. The user has the option for the face of the card to be an image, a word, or both. Users can also shuffle flashcards.
Learn
In this mode, users answer flashcard, multiple choice, and written questions repeatedly. New words from the set are slowly introduced, and words already answered will return in the form of written questions until the word is identified correctly repeatedly.
Write
In this mode, users are shown a term or definition and must type the term or definition that goes with what is shown. After entering their answer, they see if their answer was correct, and can choose to override the automatic grading and count their answer as right if needed. This mode was originally the "Learn" mode before being replaced by the newer version above.
Spell
In this mode, the term is read out loud and users must type in the term with the correct spelling. If the user gets every answer correct, they are rewarded with a video of a monster truck doing a jump, wheelie, and flip. This game was previously known as "Speller".
Match
In this mode, users are presented with scattered terms, with each term having a corresponding scattered definition. Users drag terms on top of their associated definitions to remove them and try to clear all terms in the fastest time possible. On smaller screens, this is replaced with a similar mode, except that the terms and definitions are presented in a grid, with users having to click on a term/definition and then click its corresponding term/definition. Match was previously attributed as "Scatter", though the game was the same.
Live
In this mode, a Quizlet teacher begins a Live session, and players can join by entering the code shown on the teacher's screen. The teacher can choose whether to assign students into teams of 3-4 players or have them play individually. The first player or team to answer twelve question wins. If the players are split into teams, only one player will have the correct answer for any given question; otherwise, each player will have to choose from the correct option and three other term/definition from the set for each question.
Student cheating
Students on Quizlet may upload information that can be used to cheat within the classroom. In a survey at a High School in Orlando, a student was quoted saying "If someone put $100 in front of you, would you take it?", referring to the ease with which students can use platforms like Quizlet to cheat on schoolwork. In another instance, a professor at Sacramento State University caught 40 of his 96 students cheating on a take-home exam.
As of September 2022, Quizlet's website has an "Honor Code" encouraging users of the website not to misuse the platform for academic cheating.
See also
Chegg
Course Hero
Kahoot!
Wordly Wise
References
External links
Official website
Educational technology
American educational websites
Language learning software
Internet properties established in 2007
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Privately_held_companies_of_the_United_States
Multinational_companies_headquartered_in_the_United_States
Albany, California