31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
We bring you a guide with 31 applications and web tools to help you as a student, a very varied collection to take advantage of in different areas in which you may need it. We have left out the educational field for the youngest resources in this other guide and focused on more adult students.
We have decided to focus on practical tools, leaving out the platforms for online courses, both the best-known and lesser-known ones. Instead, we have preferred to look for resources you can use in your day-to-day life, such as source and citation managers, tools for diagrams, exchanging notes, or creating different content.
And what we always say at Xataka Basics today makes more sense than ever. We bring you 31 tools, but we invite you to share your proposals in the comments section so that other users can also benefit from the knowledge of our xatakeros.
Bing Images
We will start with a resource that will surely surprise many since only some people will use Bing compared to Google. However, the Microsoft image search engine is perfect for finding copyright-free images that you can use in any work or project since it allows you to filter the results to find those in the public domain.
If you enter Google Images when filtering the images by license, you have very few options since, at most, you can specify those that are Creative Commons. However, Bing has many more license filters, which can be in the public domain or set the necessary conditions to share.
canvas
Canva is a page that we have already told you about once. It is a very versatile graphic design website, and it has a large number of options and tricks with which to create all kinds of designs, whether personal, educational, or professional, being able to make pamphlets, stationery, images, and other types of multiple projects.
Schedules, pamphlets, calendars, posters, and any graphic design can be used in jobs. You can upload your photos and add filters and other visual elements on the web or simply from some text you have chosen. It also has templates, so not knowing how to edit does not impede the creation of simple compositions.
Quote This For Me
It is essential when doing academic papers to cite the sources you have relied on correctly. This free page helps you cite correctly in your bibliography, and it has been running since October 2010.
The page has a large number of citation styles, in case you were asked to use one of them in particular. All you have to do on the web is choose a type, choose whether the citation is from a website, a book, or another reference, and use the source search engine to find the one you want to cite.
creately
It is a tool that helps you make diagrams and concept maps in a simple way and with all the tools to make it very visual. It can also outline concepts, analyze processes or generate plans. It offers many charts and shapes to make up to 70 different types of diagrams.
It will also allow you to create shapes and connectors with a single interaction, apply to format, and make many other changes with a quick and easy-to-use toolbar that you will always have in view. It also has a theme system in case you lack inspiration so that you can help yourself with the ideas generated by the web.
divalent
It is a search engine for theses and scientific articles from magazines or documents in Spanish, and the University of La Rioja coordinates it. Its operation is effortless, as it has two search engines, one for papers and the other for magazines. So all you have to do is search for the term you want in one of them, and that’s it, as if it were Google, all the results would appear.
Docsity
Docsity is a community for exchanging academic documents between students, the service that merged with the well-known Patatabrava website. The project has more than 10 million registered users who have shared more than two million documents.
Its way of working is simple. You enter and use the metasearch engine to find notes posted by other people or conversations started. Because if you have questions, you can register and ask the community questions. You can filter the results between those for high school and those for universities.
draw.io
Another tool with which you can make charts, diagrams, circuits, and various types of concept maps. It is all-in-one and very easy to use since it simply shows you a sidebar with the elements that you have available, and you have to move them to the screen to make your compositions. In addition, you can change the size, color, and style of the elements you place.
And if you have little experience creating schematics, the web will also offer you a series of templates to get the job done. In addition, it is an open-source web tool that allows you to save your creations in various formats, including PDF, PNG, or JPG. Finally, it will enable you to choose between your device, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, to save your creations.
freepik
It is a Malaga startup that offers a website where users can find quality graphic resources. It is a search engine with more than 10 million visual resources and in a freemium model that allows you to download specific images for free but gives access to a paid catalog of greater variety and quality for professionals in the field of graphic design.
Come on, what you have is a kind of Google for graphic resources such as PSD templates, stock photos, icons, and also templates for presentations. It is straightforward to use since you only have to search for the term you want in the search engine, and you will see the results.
Forest
We live in a world full of distractions, so sometimes, it’s easy to get distracted by your phone. Forest tries to help you focus on a specific task for a certain amount of time. To do this, you can plant a tree in the app every time you want to concentrate.
When you do this, the tree will grow for the next half hour to encourage you not to use your mobile or browser. It won’t block your access to other things, but it will try to make you feel guilty by telling you that the tree won’t keep growing. The list of pages to “block” to kill the tree if you enter is customizable.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
genially
Recommending you, at this point, PowerPoint or Google Slides could be of little use. For this reason, we will recommend one of the best alternatives to make your presentations, infographics, or other designs in a simple and visual way. It is a website belonging to a Cordoba startup.
It is a free website with paid versions, which you must register to use. It has a template system that will help you get inspired or make presentations without having to master how to compose them. It also allows you to add animated and interactive content to bring your presentations to life.
Google Drive
There are several alternatives to creating personal clouds to upload files, and Google Drive is not one of the most generous in terms of available space. However, it does include a free office suite that will serve as an alternative to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint so that it can be beneficial at an educational level.
The great advantage of Google Drive is that you already have little space in the cloud with its tools if you have a Gmail account. These, being popular, have many compatible apps and add-ons, as well as dozens of templates for Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides, which is the alternative to PowerPoint.
Google Lens
Another Google tool, in this case, is to interact with what you have in front of you when you point at it with the mobile camera and this app. Google Lens allows you to do many things, from digitizing text to translate it with augmented reality so that the translation appears in front of you.
It also has many other uses beyond what you may find helpful in the academic field, such as identifying objects and searching for them in online stores, even determining what appears in some photos. But, again, all are varied and free; you need a Google account.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
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ILovePDF
It is a page with all the tools you may need to work with PDF files. Everything you could want to do with a PDF is here, including the ability to convert them to formats like Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. You can also convert them to JPG images or convert the images to PDF.
In addition, it also has tools to join several PDF files or separate one into several. You can also unzip, edit, add watermarks, and unlock or lock them. You can also rotate them, and it even allows you to sign them.
Intralinks
It is a free page with a paid version that seeks to help you improve your reading comprehension. In this case, it is helpful for secondary school students and other minors since they have content for ages 8 to 18. First, however, you need to register to access it.
In this web portal, you will find extensive content from different authors and genres, with explanations and integrated activities. In addition, the platform proposes the practice of reading skills and strategies, including the tasks of the PISA evaluation framework.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
Kahoot!
It is a tool with which you can create all kinds of personalized questionnaires through its website on any computer and in its mobile applications. Moreover, the application has the freemium modality, with which you have part of the tools for creating questionnaires for free after registering. Still, if you want to customize them even more, you will have to pay their premium.
Kahoot seeks the gamification of learning, allowing quizzes to be made in game format with which you earn points for the correct answers. It can be helpful, especially for teachers, but it can also help you challenge yourself or the rest of your classmates as a student.
The sheets
It is a complete portal where you will find a compilation of theory, solved exercises, and sheets ready to download and print, so you can use them whenever you want. In addition, it has courses ranging from the first year of ESO to the second year of the Baccalaureate and resources on many topics.
Mega
When we talked about Google Drive a little above, we mentioned the many cloud storage alternatives available to you. For example, if you need as much space as possible for your classes, Mega offers you 50 GB free to create an account with them.
Its cloud offers end-to-end encryption so that nobody can intercept the content and see it, and it has mobile applications in addition to its website to manage what you have or what they share with you. It also offers messaging features, with the ability to make video calls.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
Microsoft To Do
The task management tool with which Microsoft has replaced Wunderlist after its purchase and closure. There are several alternatives, but since anyone with Windows 10 already has a Microsoft account that includes To Do, we’ve gone with it. It has both a version for Windows to always have notifications next to it and a web version, as well as apps for mobile devices.
It is a service that allows you to organize your day-to-day, adding tasks, notes, or files that you can share. It also integrates with Outlook and has listed one or more jobs to which you can set a completion date, and To-Do will remind you so you remember to do it. All are perfectly synchronized on your devices.
My Study Life
You will like this service if you are a fan of order and organization. It requires registration and has a web and mobile version. It allows you to organize all aspects of your academic life, from your class schedules to the pending tasks or review the ones you have already finished.
It also allows you to create reminders of all kinds, and when you look at the app, it will serve as an agenda thanks to the calendar in which you will see the hours of each subject. All this will be synchronized on all devices through your account.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
obs studio
OBS Studio is a free application for video recording or live streaming and has video editing options. It has versions for Windows, Linux, and macOS, a popular tool many professional streamers love.
Among its options is the ability to create scenes with multiple sources, including video capture, images, text, browser windows, webcams, and capture cameras. Therefore, it will help you make videos explaining things or recording your screen, something that can be recurring in times of quarantine.
Plag.es
One of the best tools to detect plagiarism in texts and works. It is designed above all for teachers, but you will also be able to know if someone has plagiarized you. It can review billions of web pages, articles, books, and publications to help detect plagiarism in a document.
To do this, it uses an algorithm capable of verifying documents of up to 1,000 pages using SSL browsing technology. The detector allows you to quickly correct and edit the documents you have uploaded to detect plagiarism and then download a copy of the corrected original version, preserving the style and format. Plag offers the possibility of integrating its API, and it works in 128 languages with more than 640 repositories.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
Boston
Suppose we have discussed Canva as a tool with multiple options for creating images and graphic work. In that case, Powtoon is similar but focused on visual communication through short, animated, or even explanatory videos or presentations.
Best of all, it is prepared so that you can create videos and animations even if you have yet to learn since it has a system of thematic templates to have a base on which to make small editions. Furthermore, it integrates with various online platforms, and you have several tools to edit your content.
RAE and Fundéu
These times, we will only sometimes have a dictionary with us. However, these are still useful when you study and do work, so two of the essential pages for any student’s bookmarks are those of the Royal Spanish Academy or RAE and that of the Fundación del Español Urgente or Fundéu.
The first is a page that includes the updated online version of the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, where you can look up terms to see their meaning. And on the Fundéu website, you can look up how words are written, knowing when they are best used and which ones. do they have an accent, and where do they have it?
PHET simulators
The University of Colorado creates this page, so it is one of the few entirely in English on the list. We include it because it has a vast and functional collection of laboratory simulators and practices of various subjects, such as Mathematics, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. They are interactive, and many are based on HTML5, so they work directly in any browser.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
stylus
Writing with a good style and without misspellings is very important. Tools like Word have helpers to help you to some extent with that, but sometimes you need more, and you need a more robust alternative. That is where this online resource that requires registration comes into play.
The stylus has a spelling and grammar-checking system that considers context and semantics to help you refine your style. It is online, and you can use it in a limited way for free, offering different payment plans for more intensive use. It also provides up-to-date suggestions with didactic explanations and a bibliography so you can learn from your mistakes.
Text Rewriter and Spinner
This page is very peculiar, and although you should not use it as a student, it can sometimes get you out of trouble. It slightly modifies your texts so that it is not easy to detect that you copied them, at least using the classic tools that compare texts to see if fragments are the same.
To do it, you write a text and click the Rewrite button to rewrite it. The page analyzes it and slightly modifies some fragments, removing things, looking for synonyms or moving them around, and making them understandable. Those responsible for the web ensure that it can do this in 100 languages.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
Tom’s Planner
This page is simple and focused on one thing, but it can be beneficial. It is used to make Grant Diagrams quickly and easily, with a simple tool that allows you to share your diagrams and use themes to create them. You have an overview and a detailed view to see who is doing what, and you can make quick changes with a simple drag and drop. Of course, it will require you to register.
vish
Beyond the communities to share your notes and answer questions from other students, there are also similar platforms but with a slightly different approach, such as Vish. More than uploading notes, what you do on this website is create and share educational resources. These can be from exercises to miniature academic courses.
moolah
This page follows in the footsteps of Patatabrava, which is now merged with the Docsity website we mentioned above. It is, therefore, a similar concept, an online community where you can share your notes with millions of users from all over. However, in this case, it focuses mainly on the university, ordering the notes by universities, faculties, and subjects.
One of the attractions of this community is its reward system, with which you can get prizes in exchange for uploading your notes. A way to make the community more participatory and to feed its base is by being able to also obtain points for helping other users.
31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
YouTube Learning
And we are almost at the end of YouTube Learning, a YouTube section dedicated to online education. As you can imagine, it is a site where videos of didactic content are organized into themes and subjects. The videos are in Spanish and are content from YouTubers that Google filters to show you here.
This specific YouTube channel has few videos in terms of volume, but it is a good starting point to consume classes and explanations in video tutorial format. You only have to enter that specific section, and you will see all its areas, and when you enter them, you will see the videos included within.
Zotero
And we end with Zotero, a page that has been with us for more than a decade and serves to collect, manage and cite your research sources. Therefore, it is a perfect companion for anyone writing a research article and wanting a clear and straightforward place to contain bibliographic references.
The interface resembles an email manager’s, with a column on the left where you can create different folders to store your sources. By clicking on a folder, you will see all the seeds that you have inside, being able to filter them by name, author, or date.
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31 essential apps and websites to help you with your studies
