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Study Smarter: A Roundup of Useful Websites for Students
Arm yourself with the right tools and have yourself the best semester ever
The demands of academics, extracurriculars and home life can get overwhelming for any student. Time and energy are finite. And it’s essential to find ways to work smarter (not harder).
In this day and age, though, it’s not enough to tackle research, homework and other school tasks with reliable internet. The trick is to know where to turn to once you’re connected. There may be tons of resources online that help students manage tasks wisely, but which ones truly help them perform their best?
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Below, a roundup of online platforms sure to turn anyone into a productivity hacker. Scroll through for the 10 useful websites that students can turn to.
Websites to Help With Homework
ABCmouse
Starting things off for the younger kids is ABCmouse, which is an awareded online learning platform. Get the kids intersted in reading, math, science and the arts with their curriculum that spans some 850 lessons and 9,000 learning activities—which numerous mothers swear by.
Grammarly
Say goodbye to spelling and grammatical errors with Grammarly, a spellcheck plug-in far more capable and advanced than the built-in feature in, say, Microsoft Word. What makes this program unique is that it also provides writing suggestions to help improve clarity, appropriateness and fluency among other things. Whether it’s an email to your professor or a 10-page research paper, the app is designed to continuously offer suggestions on sentence construction to help you sound professional and eloquent.
Britannica Online
Learning goes beyond the four walls of a classroom (and beyond hardbound encyclopedias, too). Thanks to the World Wide Web, you can learn at your own pace. Do it with Britannica, the learning resource that now has an equally massive online database. The best part? It’s free.
From cross-referenced articles, biographies, videos and visual aids, Britannica serves as a reliable, legitimate resource covering a wide variety of subjects for any schoolwork-related task you have to tackle.
Websites to Help You Study
YouTube Learning
With online classes being the norm recently, it's no secret that students of all ages might need a little bit of help. Enter YouTube Learning, a educational platform that covers topics from airplanes to climate change and aesteroids to sharks.
Browse its library and walk into information you might not have otherwise learned—and definitely not in this way.
DepEd Commons
Naturally, the Department of Education is also doing its part in helping Filipinos adapt to online learning. Their answer lies in DepEd Commons, a platform that aims to provide online learning material for students of all ages and educational backgrounds.
Sign up, put in your details and get started.
Quizlet
Making reviewers, writing notecards and memorizing important terms take a lot of time and effort. If you’re pressed for time and want to reduce the hours spent on preparing study material, Quizlet is the platform for you. This program is designed to help you study any subject and offers a variety of learning tools that can make review time a lot more engaging and interactive.
SelfControl
If exam week is on the horizon and you know you have a ton of topics to cover, eliminating distraction is a must. To help you focus on your tasks, one smart move is to temporarily disable Facebook, Twitter and other unnecessary sites on your laptop. SelfControl can help you with that.
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Websites to Help You with Research
The Owl
Memorizing APA and MLA formats can get confusing. In cases where you have to cite a large number of sources for a research paper, you may end up wasting hours perfecting your citations. A perfect example of busywork that in no way counts as a productive use of your time.
Sites such as The Owl can make your life a whole lot easier by helping you format the papers you have to submit. It also comes with free learning material to give you a better grasp of research and citation.
Turnitin
Students, don’t ever attempt to plagiarize. Not only can it get you into a world of trouble, but it’s an offense that goes on your record—permanently. If you want to avoid any kind of research-related violation, make sure that all papers you’re writing are free from any form of plagiarism. Manually checking the material can be tedious and inefficient, though, so using a plagiarism detection software is your best bet.
Turnitin is one of the most popular sites for such an undertaking, and it helps students and professors maintain their academic integrity.
Websites to Help Improve Productivity
Habitica
As Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
That said, your level of productivity will ultimately be defined by your daily habits. Developing good ones, such as sleeping early or minimizing screen time, can be difficult to attain and often leads to frustration. Thankfully, apps like Habitica are designed to help you achieve these goals in a fun way. The platform treats your habit development like a game and rewards you whenever you make progress.
Audible
Need to read a book for a literature class? There’s a big chance that an audiobook of it already exists. Your schedule may not allow you to sit down and read from a book or tablet, but Audible enables you to get the job done—hands-free.
Consider Audible a worthy investment, too, that can keep you entertained and productive during long commutes to and from school.
Websites to Help You Decide on a Future Career
Indeed
Already in your last year of college? Even though graduation may still be a few terms away, soon enough, you’ll be on the hunt for a job.
Enter: Indeed. It’s a platform for students searching for career openings in their preferred industry. On Indeed, all you have to do is submit your résumé. The platform will provide recommendations that match your details and can even send you alerts whenever a company in your matched field has a vacancy.
TED Talks
One of the things students can lean into is the fact that they have their best years ahead of them. With a lot more time to think, pore over career and life options, young students can make the most out of their time by seeking inspiration.
TED Talks is a good place to start. As a platform filled with motivational and informative speeches, students get access to a variety of eye-opening topics with seasoned experts guiding the discussion.
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With these tools at your disposal, paving the way for a brighter, better tomorrow in your academic career just got more attainable. Did you find this list helpful? Share it with your classmates!
In this day and age, reliable internet connectivity has become a must-have for every student. Whether it’s an unli data promo or a home broadband plan, having a stable connection to the web will give you access to apps and pages that can improve your day-to-day performance.
Always stay connected: Globe offers affordable Broadband plans and Prepaid promos to help address all your academic and personal needs.