Aren’t smartphones just the best? Considering how easy they so often render daily life, even cash-strapped students and families might consider them a valuable investment this back-to-school season. Especially when one looks at the number of applications available to better organize classes, events, activities, and basic needs as well as supplement classroom lessons.
Androids, iPhones, and the like might be pricy, but they definitely pay off. Read on to check out our picks for the very best smartphone apps that can help students this back-to-school season.
Are you a teacher? Check out our teacher’s edition of this list!Productivity & Organization
- Dropbox: Never miss an important document with the highly acclaimed Dropbox, an app that syncs between devices and makes accessing files a painless procedure.
- Mint.com: If there’s one thing college kids need to wring their hands over, it’s money. Personal finance juggernaut Mint.com presents a free app to help anyone — not just young’uns — keep track of their expenditures and savings on the go.
- Evernote: Make and keep multimedia notes so you absolutely never forget anything important for classes, extracurricular activities, and anything else.
- myHomework: This organizer for the iPhone and Android devices specifically targets students, allowing them to stay on top of their assignments, exams, homework, events, and more.
- GPA-mE!: iPhone users wanting to know their exact GPAs take advantage of this special calculator to make it so.
- Remember the Milk: Remember the Milk isn’t just about grocery shopping! The incredibly popular app allows downloaders a quick, painless way to draw up to-do lists and keep track of their daily duties.
- LinkedIn: Our list may be about “back to school,” but it’s never too early to start networking for internships and/or jobs and scoring advice from industry professionals.
- HootSuite: Manage Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and LinkedIn accounts all at once thanks to the stellar stylings of the Hootsuite interface.
- Chegg: Save time and money by renting textbooks through Chegg, a service available to any student via the web, but only available on the iPhone when it comes to a mobile presence.
- Flashcards* and AnkiDroid Flashcards: Create, download, and share digital flashcards perfect for quizzing yourself and others on nearly every academic subject out there.
Reading & Writing
- Instapaper: When a particularly relevant or interesting website or blog presents itself, Instapaper makes it possible to save for offline reading and sharing.
- Writer: Android fans desiring a simple, straightforward word processor use Writer to take down notes or save snippets for the Great American Novel they’ll someday publish but probably not.
- PlayTales: Parents hoping to nurture literacy in their children will love the Touchy Books that allow them to interact with multimedia stories and learn to read at the same time.
- Audible.com: Listen to thousands of audiobooks for $14.95 a month — kind of a steep price, but worth looking into for audiobook enthusiasts and the hearing-impaired.
- Kindle: Convert that Android or iPhone into a home for ebooks with the Kindle app and catch up on established classics and current bestsellers alike.
- iTranslator: Foreign language students with access to an iPhone or iPhone Touch use iTranslate with Google Translate, Free Translation, and Babel Fish to help them through small challenges.
- Classic Text to Speak Engine and Speak it! Text to Speech: For the hearing-impaired or students who prefer listening to their notes, these apps convert written words into clear audio.
- Byword: Sync iPhones with Macs or use Dropbox alongside this iOS text writing and editing device, perfect for authoring papers a little bit at a time when a few spare moments pop up.
- Goodreads: Bibliophile students looking for their next literary fix will love networking with other bookish types over at Goodreads and learning what all sits on the shelves of the world.
- MiniMod Reading for Details Lite: Great for teaching newer readers how to grow their competency skills, with challenges all about keeping texts close and details closer.
Reference
- The World Factbook: iPhone fans with a penchant for all things geographical can download this annually-updated app (backed by the CIA!) for a quick look at information regarding every nation in the world.
- WebMD: Try not to slip into hypochondria mode, OK? Still, though, WebMD is a great app to keep on hand when trying to figure out a health issue.
- Black’s Law Dictionary: Be sure to download the latest edition and keep $54.99 on hand, because Black’s Law Dictionary stands as an essential download for anyone hoping to enter the legal field someday.
- Fooducate: Scan the barcode of any food product and receive detailed information about its nutritional value, as well as alternative purchases with more nourishing qualities.
- wikiHow: Learn how to do pretty much anything with more than 120,000 instructions uploaded by experts and non-experts from around the world.
To read about a further 25 apps, go to: http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/08/21/the-50-best-smartphone-apps-for-back-to-school-the-student-edition/
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