Top 10 Essential Apps For Effective Results

The lockdown has forced almost every parent who cares about their children’s education to buy them new gadgets, ranging from mobile phones and tablets to laptops and PCs. They had to let the children use these extensively due to the online learning phase compensating for lost time wasted for students all over the world. Some were privileged enough to straight-up buy new stuff and some had to try makeshift solutions to their problems, just enough to aid them in their studies so that they aren’t left behind. But we aren’t here for the economic imbalance affecting education, that’s a heavy topic for some other day.

For now, let’s look at some of the apps you can use daily, now that almost everyone owns a smartphone. These are apps that will complement your everyday studies and push you to do your work. Another set of websites and apps will be released as a subsequent blog, for free learning resources.

Some of these are free, some are paid, and some are open source. We’ll try to update them with new apps to cover newer aspects of self-learning. Here you go —

1.  School planner –

First on the list is a school planner app. It is a very handy app for students who like to organize their studies and plan their days well in advance to keep everything under control. The reminders and notifications of the schedule planner will ensure that you don’t miss any tasks on your to-do list of homework, assignments, and exams.

You can also track your performance based on grades and percentages in different subjects. The built-in calendar is made to integrate with your timetable and is optimized for your students to easily manage your events and activities.

Everything is color customizable so, your virtual timetable doesn’t look boring which goes with the overall sleek theme of the app. And you can take a printout in case you need to paste it in front of your desks. Overall give it a try, it’ll surely boost your productivity.

Android – School Planner – Apps on Google Play

iOS – NA

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Ticktick – ‎TickTick: To-Do List & Remind on the App Store (apple.com)

                    TickTick: ToDo List Planner, Reminder & Calendar – Apps on Google Play

myhomework – ‎myHomework Student Planner on the App Store (apple.com)

Class Timetable – ‎Class Timetable on the App Store (apple.com)

                              school planner – Google Play

Google Calendar – myhomework – Android Apps on Google Play

2.  OneNote –

Second up is a note taking app. We know that most people might not have a notepad or pen in their hands when they need it, but there must be a phone or electronic gadget lying nearby. So, when in need of making lists, notes and just scribbling an idea in your mind, use OneNote.

OneNote’s flexible canvas gives you a chance to be creative with your note taking and ways to do it are limitless, from drawing, writing, scanning documents, adding pictures, videos, audio recordings and much more to keep everything in one place. The notebook is saved on the cloud so that it’s easy to organise it from any synced device.

You can collaborate with other people on group projects and comment on, to keep the key resources and important points as per needs. Also, it syncs with other Microsoft apps. It’s laden with features, a must have app for sure.

Android – Microsoft OneNote: Save Ideas and Organize Notes – Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Microsoft OneNote on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

easy notes – Easy Notes – Notepad, Notebook, Free Notes App – Apps on Google Play

Google Keep – ‎Google Keep – Notes and lists on the App Store (apple.com)

                              Google Keep – Notes and Lists – Apps on Google Play

Evernote – ‎Evernote – Notes Organizer on the App Store (apple.com)

                    Evernote – Notes Organizer & Daily Planner – Apps on Google Play

3.  Quizlet –

Third is an app which can do wonders for your results based on your everyday studies and learning if you use it regularly. Quizlet helps in practicing and mastering new concepts by the way of flashcards. You can create on your own and even access the thousands made by students all over the world.

You can have competitions with your friends and classmates right from the app. Interacting with the app is also very easy because of the clean UI. Just like in the exams and tests, Quizlet gives you the chance to feel the same time based pressure to enhance your memory.

If your teachers are interested, they can make and share flashcards with you. Your memory and remembering skills will sure improve if you give this app a worthy try for subjects which require a little bit of rote learning.

Android – Quizlet – Android Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Quizlet Flashcards & Homework on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Anki Flashcards – AnkiDroid Flashcards – Apps on Google Play

Kahoot! – Kahoot! Play & Create Quizzes – Apps on Google Play

4.  Pocket –

Next up is Pocket, which is a dream of an app for students who like reading articles, blogs, stories, videos, recipes, news, basically any kind of webpage but can’t read it as soon as they want and save for later. And that’s the whole purpose of Pocket. Their tagline, “Save. Read. Grow.”, says everything about the app, which is to capture the content that comes at you all day long, and curate your own space filled with only the topics you care about.

You can save the mentioned stuff from any website or devices and the app will curate and sync so you can read them anywhere. Then fuel your mind with a reading, watching, and listening experience designed for calm eyes, free hands, and fresh focus. The UI is fresh and makes reading easy by giving you utmost customisation over your content or you can just listen to the articles. Give it a shot if you’re into reading interesting stuff on the internet.

Android – Pocket – Android Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Pocket: Save. Read. Grow. on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Instapaper – ‎Instapaper on the App Store (apple.com)

                    Instapaper – Android Apps on Google Play

5.  Microsoft Lens –

This might not be new for you, so go on skip ahead to the next app, but if you still don’t use this scanning, enhancing app, you should start now. This app turns physical documents, photos of whiteboards, books, handwritten notes, and much more into image or PDF formats for easy readability and a plethora of enhancement editing features.

You can turn your photo scan into a high-quality PDF document that unlocks content through automated text recognition (OCR). You can reuse content after scanning PDF documents thanks to OCR. Use it as a book scanner to quickly digitize bulk pages. There are many apps to do it nowadays, but Microsoft lens has the simplest UI and it’s heavy duty.

Android – Microsoft Lens – PDF Scanner – Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Microsoft Office Lens|PDF Scan on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Adobe Scan – Adobe Scan: PDF Scanner with OCR, PDF Creator – Apps on Google Play

                    ‎Adobe Scan: PDF Mobile Scanner on the App Store (apple.com)

6.  Microsoft Math Solver –

This app is a heaven sent for students who struggle with mathematics and its infinite possibilities. We chose Microsoft Math Solver over the more popular PhotoMath app, because it’s free, but they both do the same thing, so choose at your own liberty. Both use advanced OCR to read the numbers, letters and solve it in real time to show you the answer and also the step-by-step explanation, and even interactive graphs based on the questions.

The range of problems they support is still a little bit basic for now, which includes, arithmetic, algebra, statistics, and basic word problems, calculus. It’s a great learning app when you are suddenly stuck at a point in a math problem. Both are simple to use and together offer a lot of options.

Android – Microsoft Maths Solver – Android Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Microsoft Maths Solver -HW app on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

PhotoMath – Photomath – Apps on Google Play

                    ‎Photomath on the App Store (apple.com)

Desmos Graphing Calculator – ‎Desmos Graphing Calculator on the App Store (apple.com)

                                                  Desmos Graphing Calculator – Apps on Google Play

7.  Minimalist Pomodoro Timer –

Now that you all own smartphones, it’s very easy to get distracted, and even when we suggest you apps here, it doesn’t mean you should be on your phones all day to waste your time. Even constant long durations of non-stop studies can lead to your concentration levels going down. Here’s where Pomodoro Timer comes in.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks.

This Pomodoro timer app will notify you to take short breaks between your studies and not waste your time just holding the book in your hands. Definitely try this technique and it’s sure to improve your productivity to do more in less time, and regain your lost concentration. Some apps like forest put a fun touch to the same concept. Check them out.

Android – Pomodoro Timer Lite – Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Focus Keeper – Time Management on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Forest – Forest: Stay focused – Apps on Google Play

          ‎Forest – Stay focused on the App Store (apple.com)

8.  Mindomo –

This app could be a totally new thing for you, but could help you in ways that you can’t imagine. A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information in hierarchical form and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added.

Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those major ideas. Mind maps can also be drawn by hand, either as “notes” during a lecture.

So, this app does half the task for you by making a template of hundreds of levels of complicated hierarchies to simplify a concept in your studies. These graphical aids make it easy for you to understand things. Try the other apps too, to find the best UI as per your needs.

Android – Mind Map & Concept Map Maker – Mindomo – Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Mind Map Maker – Mindomo on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Transno – Transno – Outlines, Notes, Mind Map – Apps on Google Play

Mindmeister – mindmeister – Android Apps on Google Play

                    ‎Mind Mapping – MindMeister on the App Store (apple.com)

9.  Grammarly –

In my opinion this app is essential to everyone who thinks their writing skills need improvement, because Grammarly will do exactly that for you with ease. It’ll correct you a hundred times in a single paragraph for tiny details in your vocabulary and grammar to huge sentence restructuring tips to just tell you how wrong we write/type and feel we have written well.

The number of errors and corrections shown by Grammarly can be overwhelming at times but go through them one by one and you’ll definitely learn something new with every sentence and mistake you do, so as to improve and not make those same mistakes again.

Their browser extension, and Microsoft Office integration works like a charm. Try yourself and you’ll understand the scope of improvement in your English skills.

Android –  Grammarly Keyboard – Grammar Checker and Editor – Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Grammarly – Keyboard & Editor on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

There aren’t any similar alternatives, so have these instead,

Dictionary – Dictionary – Android Apps on Google Play

                    ‎Merriam-Webster Dictionary on the App Store (apple.com)

Thesaurus – Power Thesaurus Free – Apps on Google Play

                    ‎Power Thesaurus on the App Store (apple.com)

10.                Dropbox –

So, we end our list with Dropbox and basically any other cloud based storage by other apps. These will act as the connection between your devices for you to access your content, documents, notes, so that your work is updated everywhere.

Upload, transfer and manage your files, back-up all your work, send large files and even access particular parts of your drive offline in certain devices. The possibilities are endless and hence they complete your journey through productivity.

Android – Dropbox: Cloud Storage, Photo Backup, File Manager – Apps on Google Play

iOS – ‎Dropbox – Backup, Sync, Share on the App Store (apple.com)

Honourable mentions/Alternatives –

Google Drive – ‎Google Drive – online backup on the App Store (apple.com)

                              Google Drive – Apps on Google Play

Onedrive – ‎Microsoft OneDrive on the App Store (apple.com)

                    Microsoft OneDrive – Apps on Google Play

Mega – MEGA – Android Apps on Google Play

‎・MEGA・ on the App Store (apple.com)

So, in conclusion use these productivity tools in your daily lives and we are sure that it will enhance your way of learning.