In 2020, technology plays an important part in how we learn, how we interact with each other and how we enjoy ourselves. A primarily online and sometimes blended learning approach has been adopted by several of the top universities in the country in the wake of the current situation and, luckily, there are a lot of apps out there designed to help with productivity and even teach us new skills. We’ve rounded up five that we think every student should have on their phone.
Whether you’re attending an online lecture or participating in a digital seminar, note-taking in an incredibly important part of university work. When it comes to writing an essay, having detailed notes can make all the difference. There are several note-taking apps out there, but Evernote is one of the standouts.
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Best features: You can sync your notes across all your devices, meaning you can type on your tablet and then access all your lecture notes on your laptop when you need them. If you prefer to handwrite your notes, that works too – you simply take a picture of them, upload them to Evernote and you can search them for specific words as you would with typed notes.
University essay-writing has many requirements that go beyond simply putting together a convincing argument or analysis. An accurate bibliography, properly formatted references and citations and making absolutely sure nothing is plagiarised are all incredibly important, too. Getting them right takes practice, but luckily there’s an app that can help: EasyBib.
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Best features: You simply search for the book, journal or website you’ve referenced and EasyBib generates the bibliography entry for you. It has over 7,000 citation styles built-in (including the commonly used Harvard), which means no matter what format your university uses, you’ll be able to find it. Top tip: you can also search for books by scanning the barcode. In addition, they have a feature that scans your work for plagiarism, which is incredibly important because any copied work can void an entire essay, even if it was accidental.
A large part of successful studying is planning and time management. Approaching each new day with a list of goals and tasks makes everything more manageable and gives you a sense of achievement when you get to cross something off, motivating you to move onto the next job. An excellent app for keeping track of these tasks is Any.do.
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Best features: The design is clean, simple and easy to use, plus it lets you sync everything across any compatible device. There are reminders to tasks that are due and, when doing a group project, you can share lists and assign tasks to different users.
One of the best things about digital learning is students sharing resources. During exam time, it can be incredible to learn from fellow students who may have a different approach to you and to share your own methods and notes to help them, too. StudyBlue is a crowdsourced library with over 400 million flashcards, notes and study guides contributed by other students.
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Best features: You can create custom quizzes and flashcards, share with your friends and learn from other students around the world. You can also use audio for proper pronunciation, import your own notes and use smart study tracking to keep a record of how much time you’ve spent on each module or subject.
