Have you found yourself checking your mobile over and over again while you try to do
your homework? No worries, you are not the only one. In this article, we will tell you how to make your
smartphone a tool, instead of a distraction.
If someone had told you 10 years ago that you would be able to use your mobile phone to become a better
student, what would your response have been? We know, we would not have believed it either.
But
truth is that as digitisation continues, more and more educational resources have become available to
make your study hours much easier by facilitating your access to notes, reminding you about your exams,
helping you organise your assignments or simply sharing notes with your classmates or study group.
Although traditional study methods can still be useful, technology is now offering us a universe of
different options that can help a wide variety of students: from those that have mastered the
traditional learning techniques to those that don’t get along too well with the usual study methods.
Considering that the younger generation uses smartphones as an extension of themselves, there has been
little to no use of these devices as a resource for academic improvement. Here, we will briefly describe
five amazing apps that have come to make your student life way easier. Get ready to use your smartphone
productively with these amazing applications!
Evernote is one of the most common note taking apps that are on the market right now. If you have
troubles keeping your notes and schedules streamlined this can be exactly what you need.
Evernote will also help you keep all your notes organised and add any additional information if needed.
You can scan your notebooks and spice up your notes with audios, links, checklists or any other material
that you find helpful.
It’s currently available for both Android and iOS and although you can use it for free they also offer
some paid plans with additional features like having access to all your material even when you are
offline or search words on your handwritten notes.
It’s a very simple app that works as a to-do list plus timer. You can just manually enter your tasks,
start the timer and mark them as ready when you finish. The novel part is that the app suggests the
Pomodoro technique as a way to be more productive.
The Pomodoro technique is a time management strategy that proposes study time intervals that, under
certain rules, are supposed to help you be more productive. Although you can alter the proposed time
intervals, the Pomodoro technique might be something that you want to try out before discarding it
completely.
Unfortunately, it is only available for iOS devices and you have to pay a small fee to start using
it.
StudyBlue is both an app and a website, so you can use it on any device you have on hand. This platform
is a life changing studying resource that offers class specific material (flashcards) that will help you
memorise the content in an easier and more fun way.
You can also create your own flashcards and add different types of information to them (even audio and
images!), upload relevant study material, share with your classmates, track your progress and even test
your knowledge with their quizzes. Best part? You can use it for free!
This study planner is ideal for students that struggle to keep their assignments organised and delivered
on time. With this app you can schedule your tasks on a specific day, set up how much time you plan to
spend on them and schedule the respective alarms, notifications and reminders.
You can even sort your tasks by course, date or priority; keep track of your grades and keep all this
information sync across all your devices. “When is that essay due?” is a question that you will never
have to ask yourself again with this platform. You can have it for free on Android, iOS and Windows.
Having our smartphone around while studying can be a real temptation and that is what makes FocusMe so
perfect. Although it is not an exclusive application for students, it has this wonderful feature that
allows you to block access to certain pages or applications until you finish with your study interval.
Yes, that’s right. Facebook won’t be a problem anymore.
It also offers the option to plan your study sessions in advance and boost your productivity by using a
Pomodoro timer and track the time you actually spend studying.
FocusMe is both an app and website so you can use it on different devices. Unfortunately, you can’t use
this resource for free. If you want to try it first, they offer a free 2 week trial and discounts for
students.
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