7 Android Apps You Need for Going Back to School
Parents rejoice! The summer holidays are coming to an end. If you’re a working parent, that means you’re going to save a ton of money in babysitter and daycare fees. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, it means you can forget about dragging yourself around kids’ science museums and public swimming pools for another year.
Regardless of how happy you might be to see your kid(s) go back to school, you still want to make sure that they’re going to start the new school year on the right foot.
Here are seven Android apps that kids need on their devices this year.
Studious
At its core, Studious is a calendar that tracks class and homework schedules on your phone — but its capabilities extend far beyond being just another Android calendar app.
For example, it will automatically silence your phone during class hours, remind you when upcoming assignments and tests are due, provide you with a full-featured to-do list manager, and enable you to save notes to particular classes in an Evernote-esque fashion.
The best thing is that this app is appropriate for kids of all ages — whether you’re just starting out at high school or in your senior year at college.
GPA Calculator
Grade Point Averages (GPAs) are a curious quirk of the United States’ education system.
Research has consistently shown that GPAs are one of the best indicators of future employment success, and that since 2001, American companies have increasingly been making hiring decisions based on a candidate’s GPA. It’s an approach that differs greatly from the typical European model.
Given your GPA can be so influential on your future, it’s vital that you understand it, and you’re aware of if you need to improve it. Unfortunately, given the balance between scores and credits, it can sometimes be difficult to work out with a simple calculator.
The GPA calculator app lets you select your credit hours, add the grade received in a specific course, and even perform calculations for numerous semesters and quarters — all of which is combined to give you a snapshot of your current standing.
Dictionary – Merriam-Webster
Parents — remember when you were a kid? If you either couldn’t spell a word or didn’t know the meaning of a word, you’d be told to look it up in the dictionary. In my opinion this was always flawed — how could I find a word that I couldn’t spell?
That’s not a problem for today’s kids, thanks to apps like the Merriam-Webster dictionary. In addition to the usual text look-up options, it also includes voice search for those longer or tough-to-spell words.
The app has all the standard fare you’d expect from a dictionary app, including a thesaurus, synonyms, antonyms, example sentences, and a Word of the Day.
Best of all, the app works even when there is no Internet connection available.
Note: European users should look to the Oxford Dictionary instead. Several of the features are the same, but it provides British English spellings.
Books Summaries
Nobody actually reads the required texts in English class, right? We certainly didn’t when I was in school, and with the Internet now providing easy-to-digest book summaries to anyone willing to look, I can’t imagine the situation is improving.
Perhaps the situation would improve if they stopped ramming Shakespeare down kids’ throats — but I digress.
The Book Summaries app will provide you with 32 of the most popular literature class books, including Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, The Iliad, and Macbeth. According to the developer, more titles will be included in upcoming releases.
The best part of the app is that all the summaries are available without an Internet connection. That means that if your school bus takes you through the middle of nowhere, you can still do your pre-test cramming.
Formulas Lite
We’ve looked at some of the best math apps in past articles, but what sets this formulas app apart is that it all covers Physics and Chemistry as well as standard math.
It includes a scientific calculator, guidance for common math, physics, and chemistry formulas, a unit convertor, and even support for the periodic table and the various calculations surrounding it. As a nice bonus feature, it also comes packed with interesting facts about the formulas you’re using.
The only downside is that it’s ad-supported. Despite its name, there is no “pro” version.
Google Classroom
Before we delve into the details of Google Classroom, it’s important to be aware that it’s only available to students whose teacher has a “Google Apps for Education” account.
Nonetheless, as more schools start to embrace Chromebooks, there’s a good chance your teacher will have an account. If they do, you’re golden.
The app can support almost any aspect of classroom life. For example, teachers can share notes with the whole class, it lets you submit assignments through it, teachers can use it to grade tests and supply feedback, and it enables you to easily share resources with fellow students.
EasyBib: Citation Generator
As nice as it would be to be able to copy and paste your homework straight off Wikipedia, unfortunately, your teacher is almost certainly going to notice.
It’s a really bad habit to get into. Pull that stunt in high school, and you’ll probably get detention, do it in college, and you could get kicked off your course for plagiarism.
The solution is the EasyBib Citation Generator app. It’ll automatically create citations for your bibliography by simply scanning the bar code on the back of the book you need to reference.
Additional features include the ability to keep your own library of frequently-cited books and to switch between more than 7,000 citation styles with one button.
What Did We Miss?
Are you a student who is about to go back to school? Which apps to you rely on the most? Perhaps you’re a parent who’s loading up their kid’s device with everything they need — which are your must-haves?
We’d love to hear from you. You can leave us your feedback and thoughts in the comments section below.
Image Credits:school by Kolopach via Shutterstock Source: www.makeuseof.com
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