Technology amongst youngsters is prevalent – for both academic and socialisation purposes. The evolution of technology has significantly changed how we interact with our teachers and peers today.
From online classes to presentations and sharing routines and assignments, technology is becoming more necessary. Whether it’s using technology inside school walls or outside them, these tools will help students build long-lasting skills that many other people rely on daily nowadays without hesitation.
One of the most crucial components of any student’s educational journey is learning to remain organised and complete tasks independently. We have all seen or even been that woefully unorganised student who turns in late assignments, arrives to class empty-handed regularly, or misplaces instructional materials constantly. All because they lack executive function skills such as working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. Many people often think these students will never get it together, but if we take steps early enough, our efforts may be worthwhile for them later in life!
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Technology Amongst Youngsters -
9 Tech Tools Students Need to Know About
Technology amongst youngsters are quite popular. And modern students are tech-savvy. They like to play around with technology and waste their time on social media sites, but what if we could make them take full advantage of these tools? There are a number of apps out there that can help get you back into studying mode without all the hassle!
Here are a few tools that you must know about before going back to school.
1. Scrivener
As school assignments become strenuous, it’s comforting to know that the latest word processors are coming out as a lifesaver for those faced with big research papers or dissertations. Scrivener is an ideal tool if you’re in need of some organisation. This software provides multiple panes within one window where writers can customise their workflow!
If you find yourself overwhelmed by your paper workload, then try using Scrivener. Not only does it have built-in tools like outlines, but also allows users customisation through its many windows.
One of the coolest features in Scrivener is that you can use index cards to visualise long-form work. You just move them around and corresponding sections are rearranged for you inside the document! It also comes with the ability to view images, PDF files, web pages as well as other media elements right inside the writing window. All this information would be very helpful when working on those big research papers you might have come across!
Scrivener is a powerful, versatile tool that offers students the ability to write on any platform and in many formats. It’s free for 720 hours, or $40 full retail price!
2. Google Forms
Let’s start with the most common and simplest one, shall we? Google Forms is a free-to-use tool by Google, which you can use to design and share different types of forms. Before the introduction of other, dedicated quiz tools, Google Forms was even used for conducting exams and tests. However, today, Google Forms can be used to effectively engage with students to get their feedback about a class.
Google Forms lets students submit their queries anonymously. There are many weaker students in a class who don’t feel confident asking questions; they think it may sound stupid. However, if you give them a tool to submit their queries and concerns anonymously, they’d be able to ask more confidently.
Moreover, Google Forms is also very useful for conducting in-class surveys and feedback sessions. You can use the collected information to construct and better the classroom experience in the long run.
3. Microsoft OneNote
OneNote is a powerful and versatile app that can act as a digital notebook, locker for the school day, or collaborative space for project-based learning. Available on Android tablets and PCs alike, OneNote gives students all of the features they need to stay organised in class.
Checkboxes help keep track of assignments; web clippings allow them to save articles from their favourite websites directly into notebooks; hand-drawn notes are just one more way students have chosen to express themselves digitally.
As you create your own content, it’s important to be able to share and collaborate with others. With OneNote, an easy way is through the use of a shared notebook page or by sharing individual pages between collaborators. It’s free and available for every major operating system as well!
4. AllSides
We live in a world where it’s incredibly easy for user-generated content to go viral. Any form of content with an interesting factor in it has the tendency to go popular on search engines. High-worth news sources that release actual, verified content are often left under heaps of other weblinks.
However, AllSides could be your solution to the problem. It’s a news-sharing website that shares credible pieces of content, and that too from different ends of the spectrum of opinion. This tool is useful for teachers and students who study social studies or history. Rather than relying on mediocre pieces of user-generated content to support their daily research, they can use actual information from credible sources.
5. Google Docs
Simple to use cloud service, where you are able to share documents and resources with different people. It is possible for you to set up the settings so that you can send the link out to your peers or teachers. You can allow everyone who has the link access to the resource, or you can limit who is able to see the document.
This is a free service that can be used with everyone who has a free Google Mail account at their disposal, it could also be used to help them send in work that they have completed as the students will be able to send you the link to their Google Documents.
Learn to Master Google Docs to make your document creating and sharing experience much better!
6. Google Lens
We are back to another product from Google — and this time it’s the Google Lens. This one has many benefits on productivity. Have you ever felt the need to copy a piece of text from a roadside banner or a box of cereal to a digital document? Yes, you have, and so did your students. That’s where Google Lens comes in.
Not only does Google Lens let you copy text from the real world into a document, but it can also recognise any object from the real world and search it on the web for you. Let’s say you want your students to learn about a plant you found during a school trip, but you don’t know its name. What do you do? You fire up Google Lens on your smartphone, you point it at the plant, and the tool will automatically tell you the name of the plant and also present you with more information about it.
7. Dropbox
Dropbox is a free platform that allows you to upload work and use different settings to allow people to view and edit if you choose for them to do so. It will require the recipient to have a Dropbox account as well. But once they have one, and you give them permission, they are able to view the files that you save in it. It can be either via a link that you have sent out or by inviting them directly.
As mentioned, you are able to change the settings so that the students can either simply view the document or can edit it, although if you choose to allow editing the changes made on one will be viewable by all members of the group.
8. MASV
Let’s be honest: every student or teacher needs to share large files often. In fact, the sheer process of teaching and learning involves a lot of sharing and collaborations. If your students don’t have the right tool to effectively share large files, they might underperform.MASV – a secure file sharing and an effective solution to the problem. It’s a modern tool that lets your student share large files with you or other students in their circle.
9. Bulb
Creating portfolios and sharing them with the network is a crucial part of a student’s life. And a tool like Bulb makes that process incredibly streamlined.
Bulb lets you create individual portfolios for different skill areas, and then put them into collections. You can control the privacy of each collection, so no one sees what they don’t have to see.
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Conclusion
Technology amongst youngsters are common these days. Tech-based tools are a crucial component of every field today. Instead of trying to keep students away from tech, we must encourage them to utilise it for their betterment.
The tools mentioned above let students make the most out of their tech time while ensuring they improve their efficiency. The little things can make all the difference when you’re on a tight budget.
As college students, it’s easy to feel discouraged by an expensive app for organising your workload as if we have unlimited funds. Thankfully, there are some free alternatives out there that do just about everything these apps offer! Learn to Master Google Docs, so you don’t have to pay to enjoy the benefits.