School is back in session. In the past few years one thing has become very clear. Backpacks are shrinking.
Backpacks are shrinking?
Today classrooms are ditching text books and classroom tools for mobile devices and apps that run on them. So, just in time for the kids (and teachers) to be getting back to school, we've compiled a list of the most useful mobile apps for back to school!
The one thing that I never could justify buying before going back to school was a graphing calculator. For over $100 dollars you get an advanced calculator that had some pretty useful features. But they were very cumbersome to use, and really, not worth the money. (especially when there were a few in class that people like myself could use) Fortunately, for today's students, there is an alternative. Graphing Calculator (iPhone $1.99) is a perfect alternative for the $100 Texas Instruments graphing calculator. It has all the same features and a very similar interface. This is considered a steal at $1.99, so pick it up!
Buying books is the biggest rip off for college students. They force you to purchase a new or used book from any where between $50 and $200, to only trade them in at the end of the year for a fraction of the price. Well thanks to Kno (iPhone, iPad, Android - Free), this problem is partially solved. Kno offers textbooks for all grade levels k-12 and college. The app is packed with features. From social sharing your notes with the app, to the app creating flashcards of chapters that you have read. On top of the awesome features, know has worked out deals with publishers to make these e-publications much cheaper than their printed versions.
Wit kidz 2day, spellin lik ur textin has bcom da norm. Miss Spell's Class was developed by Dictionary.com to try help kids learn how to spell correctly. Miss Spell’s Class is an original word game that lets players test their spelling skills against the most commonly misspelled words on Dictionary.com. Players must quickly decide whether each of 20 words is spelled correctly or incorrectly, as speed and accuracy count to get to the top of the class! You can find this app on iPhone and Android for free.
Blackboard is a web app that students and teachers use to do things like online classes, assign and turn in classwork, and coordinate other activities in and out of the classroom. With Blackboard Mobile Learn, the same features are available as the web app, while including a few more useful features on the mobile app. You can receive push notifications of course activity, grades and new assignments. Professors can even create mobile formatted tests that can be taken on a cell phone or tablet device. No chalk or eraser necessary.
If your anything like me, homework was always the last thing on my mind when i got home from school. With MyHomework, the developer has made it fun and easy to keep your homework in order and make sure you never miss an assignmnet. The app color-codes items according to their due date and syncs to a desktop to keep all of a student's information centralized. Its a great tool for college kids who like the structure of an online system but put a few hundred miles between them and their parents for a reason.
I was never much of a flashcard user. I was more of the type of student who listened in class, took notes, did half of my homework, studied 5 minutes before the test and got a B+ in the class. I did see a lot of kids in college studying with flash cards and thought to myself that it must have taken forever for them to make those flash cards. Students today don't have to worry about that. They go into the iPhone or Android app store, spend $3.99 on this handy app and create the cards right on their phone, or better yet import the excel spread sheet they made of their cards right into the app. Even better, when your done with the test you don't have all of those piles of old flashcards sitting around collecting dust.
Did I forget any awesome must have apps for students? Add your own in the comments section below!