10 Tools for the Tech-Savvy Student Part I

Back in the day all a student needed for class was their texts, notepad, and a pencil. The most technologically advanced piece of hardware they’d carry was a calculator (battery-powered at that), and a “facebook” was something you ordered during your last semester of college.

Suffice to say, things have changed.

Students today are in the digital age, a time when they can manage their music, games, and even social life within the palm of their hand. Multi-volume encyclopedia sets can now fit on a single disk, class registration is a paperless process, and wi-fi has become general necessity—shouldn’t the tools students’ use reflect all this? The answer is YES.

So if you’re still carrying around a backpack full of binders or rifling through the card catalog listen up, cause these are the newest set of tech resources every student needs to utilize.

Dropbox – Have you ever had a file you wanted to share with a friend but was too big to email? What about that presentation you left on your flashdrive sitting in your dorm room? Dropbox solves both those problems by allowing users to store and share files through their cloud-computing system. All you have to do is download the program, sync it up with the people you’re working with, and start sharing. It’s an easy-to-use no frills application, so those of you with “tech-impaired” friends need not worry about confusing your buddies on how to use it.

Quora – Recently launched last summer, this site is one of the big players in the current “interest graphing” market happening online. What Quora allows you to do is post a question and have other users directly reply to the query. At first glance it sounds pretty basic but there’s a lot more to it; you can also search for other questions, keywords, and interests, or even “follow” them to keep-up-to-date on each response. The topics discussed on Quora are endless and can range from the casual (Best pizza in town?) to the academic (How do I write a bibliography?) to the technical (Any easy ways to create CSS sprites?), so sign up and take a look around, your question might have already been answered.

Google Docs – Everyone under the sun has heard of Google and used their search engine, but how familiar are you with these features? In Google Docs you can create a word document, spreadsheet, or presentation completely online, and share it with other users to edit and revise all in real-time. This is definitely a cheap (i/e free) alternative for those of you unable to shell out the money for a word processing program or complete home-office software, but don’t be fooled by its simplicity, you can do some pretty amazing stuff with these basic tools.

Quizlet – This website was made for students by students—literally! Founded in 2005 by (then) 15 year-old high schooler Andrew Sutherland, Quizlet enables students to create their own sets of digital flashcards for those hard-to-remember facts you need to memorize. Even better, you can search the site for flashcard sets created by other users, or share your own with classmates. Once you’ve got all your key points memorized you can put them to work with the site’s testing features, including true/false and multiple-choice quizzes, or something a bit more entertaining like their Scatter and Space Race games.

5min – Think Youtube but without all the lolcats and annoying video blogs. What 5min is looking to offer is a “videopedia”—a comprehensive source of instructional and educational videos, all of which are offered free of charge. Looking for a quick video on global warming? Curious about how the body processes proteins? Want to cook up some black bean chili? All these videos and much much more are available on the site, and are perfect resources to supplement that in-class presentation or a do-it-yourself activity at home.

That wraps up the first half of our look at the top tools for the tech-savvy student. Be sure to check back soon for Part II where we’ll be looking at some more of the best sites, software, and systems that can help you reach the top of the class.