Our smartphones go everywhere with us. We tell them everything, and they give us answers while keeping us in touch with our friends and family. In fact, psychologists are now reporting that “iPhone separation anxiety” is a real thing; yes, our smartphones are so integral to our daily lives that moments spent without them can trigger anxiety.
Whether your teen is still slugging it out in the drama-filled halls of high school, or making the shift to a more independent lifestyle in college, their smartphones will be along for the entire journey. Thankfully, there’s something valuable that these devices add to a student’s life: the ability to take the school library, and more accurately the world’s library of knowledge with them wherever they go.
To stay ahead in school and get the most out of the intellectual advantages that technology gives us, check out these four killer Android apps for students:
Andie Graph
Shelling out more than $100 for a graphing calculator is tough to do on a budget. The exciting news is that your student’s expensive smartphone can now take advantage of its own state-of-the-art processing power to eliminate the need for an expensive, bulky TI-83 graphic calculator. Andie Graph is a free Android app for students ready to ditch the graphing calculator.
While the app claims you need to own a graphing calculator in order to download its software, there are plenty of online sources for this software, eliminating this requirement.
Home Security Apps
The vast majority of security companies now offer smartphone apps to help clients monitor their home security and interact with their automated devices.
A student who feels safe and secure is more likely to focus on school and enjoy their time as a teen/young adult. Multiple studies point to students being increasingly stressed, and a sense of safety reduces teen stress. For parents, these apps (e.g. ADT Pulse App, FrontPoint Security App and SMART Connect) provide peace of mind, knowing that their home is secure and their college student’s apartment is monitored for unusual activity.
Evernote
From the classroom to the sports field, students need to be able to keep track of their life. A big part of living a full, productive life is taking notes. Notes allow our brain to declutter and focus on what’s important: seeing the bigger picture. Evernote is a free Android app that allows students to take notes and then do amazing things with those notes.
Basically, anything you can do with a piece of paper and pen, you can do with Evernote. Plus, the ability to add digital cookie crumbs allows students to quickly access content they worked with previously. If you’re really feeling ambitious, maybe you could even get your student to create a clean-room checklist using Evernote, so that it’s always within reach.
Todoist
While Evernote is great for taking notes, nothing beats Todoist for creating and organizing tasks that need to be completed. Tasks are organized by due date, and can be scheduled on a recurring basis. So, that cleaning checklist I mentioned above, Todoist can remind your son or daughter to clean their room on a weekly basis. Although, if they’re anything like me, they’ll need a daily reminder so they can procrastinate for six days and then finally get around to it once things start smelling extra funky.
A smartphone in the hands of a student without these apps installed is a missed opportunity. Boost productivity and lower stress levels by getting digitally organized. Enlighten your son or daughter by speaking their language. There really is an app for that; four, in fact.
