I have always thought that my lecture notes and recommended textbooks were the only tools needed to pass my examinations – not until I attended an academic seminar that opened my eyes to more useful and incredibly amazing tools that do not require breaking a bank to afford.
Sometimes, I return home from lectures dog-tired and fagged-out, like, totes! Yes! My eyes become too tired to go over my notes and study them, and at that instant, any attempt to review those notes results in incomprehension, which is inevitable. At that point, I resort into researching apps that will aid my comprehension.
Moreover, some students say, “I will only read the lecturers’ notes since they are the ones setting their questions and marking the scripts themselves.” As true as this may be, it is also important to know that there are situations where you won’t understand what has been taught by your lecturers in class, and the notes you’ve taken won’t be sufficient for your academic success.
Do you just close the book in frustration, or do you look for a solution? In addition, there are lots of introverted students who do not like to ask questions in class for clarity on topics they don’t understand. Yes, it is understandable, but what do you do when it’s time you to study?
All thanks to technology! There are five amazing apps that I have discovered and I have used to aid my learning processes, and I would be giving you 5 the ones that have been really helpful for me so far.
1. YouTube
What comes to many people’s minds when they hear “YouTube” is “movies”. Yes, the app is specifically made for watching videos at leisure times; however, there are other purposes YouTube can serve, such as finance, academics, self-development, skill development and many more. As a student, YouTube is a good app to utilise in order to boost your academic productivity. I call this app YouTubeversity because it’s like a school where you go to gain knowledge.
How do you utilise this gem called YouTube? There are countless numbers of lecture slides, videos, and modules created and uploaded by intellectuals from different disciplines in academia and across different countries of the world. So, what’s that topic or course you find hard to crack? Go to YouTube! There are relevant videos on that topic or course. I promise you, you’d be amazed! Accessing this app won’t cost you a fortune, except for a good connection and a full bar on your phone.
2. ChatGPT
This one is a bang! Recently, while working on a term paper for a group presentation, I discovered some amazing features of ChatGPT that are completely novel to me.
This AI-powered tool is one among all other research tools that come in handy. It is a support system for students. In other words, students are not to depend fully on it as their major and only tool for research; rather, it should co-exist with other tools. It allows for virtual tutoring for personalised learning, brainstorming, exam preparation, summarisation of bulky texts, and more. Additionally, it helps with transcribing audios to texts.
One of my latest discoveries is the ability of ChatGPT to understand and discuss images. Upload that diagram or image you don’t understand and see the wonder of ChatGPT. If you want to get the most out of ChatGPT, know how to prompt it. You would be doing yourself a great disservice if you don’t prompt it well.
3. ChatPDF
ChatPDF is a newly discovered app, and it is superb! Chatting with PDFs enables users to do research faster, summarise complex documents, ask questions and seek clarification; albeit, it’s a bit narrowed and limited to just PDFs, research papers, articles or journals.
This AI supports multiple languages and simplifies complex texts for efficient communication and understanding. It keeps sensitive information confidential and avoids unauthorised access. Furthermore, it accommodates documents of over 2000 pages, so don’t fret. The hallmark of it all is that it is free and accessible.
4. Quillbot
QuillBot is an AI-powered writing tool used to improve writing proficiency and efficiency. I personally use this app, and I highly recommend it. It has a lot of features, like a paraphraser, grammar checker, summariser, AI detector, plagiarism checker, citation generation and translation tools. For smooth and easy utilisation, you can pay to unlock the premium. A group of friends can come together to contribute for the premium and share the access links with each other.
5. Napkin AI.
Napkin AI is a document editor that converts blocks of text into visuals. In other words, it helps to visualise text contents. For instance, it has the ability to create infographics, flowcharts, and diagrams instantly without costing you your sweat. It also helps to generate its own texts and turns them into visuals.
This app is ideally useful for preparing presentation slides that will require diagrams or infographics. To crown it all, these generated visuals can be exported in different formats, including PPT, PNG, SVG and PDF.
In conclusion, to boost your academic productivity, these five apps, as aforementioned, would suffice; however, there is an avalanche of apps that can be used for smart studying and active learning. Don’t study hard but smart.
