The new term is around the corner and Education boards are still working on how to schedule classes.
Meanwhile, schools and colleges are preparing to provide a blend of online and offline teaching methods.
If you are a parent of a school-going child or are a college student, a teacher or even a working professional who has enrolled for a part-time course, then you’ll benefit from the following tools that’ll help you organise your Plans.
My Study Life is a digital planner that lets you create a timetable and add tasks on so you don’t forget about homework and assignments.
When you register, you have to specify the length of the academic year, add semesters, subjects and enter your class schedule.
Each lecture could contain details like subject, classroom number, and the teacher’s name. You can even add tasks and tag them as an Assignment, Reminder or Revision.
Study Planner also lets you create a test schedule in the Exam section, along with details like duration, seat number and location.
Plus you can access your schedule from a web browser as well.
Android, iOS, Web | Free
Assignments: Zotero | zotero.org
If you are working on multiple class reports, then use Zotero on your computer to create a library of your research work.
Your reference material could be physical books, ebooks, documents from online research journals like JStor and Google Scholar, web articles, etc.
Besides the software, you can also install its browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Safari that lets you add your project references into your repository.
Just click the button when you come across a valuable resource and save it to the correct folder along with appropriate details like author, title, summary, etc.
Finally, when you create your bibliography, you can use Zotero to create citations in various styles—APA, Chicago Manual, MLA, etc—according to your project requirements.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Web | Free
Collaboration: Flock | flock.com
While working on group assignments, it recommended that you communicate with your classmates via a collaboration service instead of email and instant messengers.
This ensures that you don’t miss important notifications because of spam and useless WhatsApp forwards.
The best way to focus on projects is to set up a separate workspace where your teammates and you can only discuss the work at hand and keep tabs on who is doing what.
Flock, for instance, lets you create group “chats”. These real-time message boards can be used to share files, notes and to-dos. With a free account, you can exchange an unlimited number of private/group messages, have 10 public channels, get 5GB storage per team, search up to 10,000 messages, and make one-on-one audio/video calls.
Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, Web | Free
Concentration: Cold Turkey | getcoldturkey.com
It is only natural to get distracted while studying or working on a project. If you’re the type who tends to lose focus easily, then you will need to go ‘Cold Turkey’.
This software lets you block access to specific websites and applications, so you can focus on the work at hand and improve productivity.
For this, you need to assign a time frame through the week (of half-hour intervals) when you want the restrictions to be enforced.
The configuration is browser-based and once put into action, cannot be reversed until the time restrictions are over.
Windows, macOS | Free
Revision: Chegg Prep
If you are preparing for an exam, then check out Chegg Prep. It uses flashcards to help you revise your work, so you don’t need to have your book with you all the time.
You can just condense study material into flashcards on your handset for quick reference.
You can create your own card sets with formatted text, images, and even share them with classmates.
Alternatively, you can browse through over 500 million readymade flashcards created by other Students from around the world.
Once you create an account with Chegg Prep, you can search by interests like a language, hobby or subject, and save the relevant card sets to your library. Each flashcard set lets you browse the questions and answers, before taking a quiz.
In the end, you can revisit the ones you got wrong and test yourself again.
