Study Tools for Online College and Grad Students

As an incoming student in college, your preferred online program may have a foreign language requirement. Duolingo is among the best of the online study tools for learning a foreign language, whether it’s a widely spoken language (e.g. French, Italian or Spanish) or lesser-known languages.

Gamification techniques, bite-sized lessons, and adaptive learning methods, such as personalized challenges and exercises) contribute to productive learning experiences. Users choose between a free version and a paid version, as well as download it to their mobile devices, enjoy the community and social features, and choose from multiple learning formats.

Students swear by the effectiveness of Evernote, a user-friendly note-taking and organization app available on mobile devices, web browsers, and desktop operating systems. Its primary functions are:

• To create digital notes including text and images, web clippings, audio recordings and file attachments
• To organize and categorize digital notes by using tags, notebooks, and stacks (e.g. to-do lists, meeting notes, and project outlines)
• To sync the digital notes across all devices where it’s installed
• To allow for fast searching and sharing of digital notes
• To save online content to their account

Both free and paid versions are available.

As a premier educational technology company, IXL provides students with online learning resources that support their academic success. Students benefit from the personalized learning experiences, usually through interactive challenges and adaptive learning exercises based on their skill level and progress.

The learning experiences are complemented by immediate feedback that allow them to understand and learn from their mistakes in answering the questions. Parents and teachers have access to detailed reports and analytics of their students’ progress and areas for improvement. There’s a wide range of subjects and skills to choose from, as well as the opportunity to access the features on all devices.

While Khan Academy is known for being the most comprehensive SAT preparation website, it actually offers a wide range of useful online study tools! As an SAT preparation website, it uses PSAT scores to develop a personalized study profile to target your weak spots and maximize your performance on all standardized tests.

Among its study tools are instructional video lessons that explain complex concepts and practice exercises with instant feedback. Students are also provided with recommendations based on their progress and with content based on their skill level and individual needs. Aside from math and science subjects, students also choose from content in art, economics and history, among others.

Prospective college students should check out the study tools, tips, and resources available on the Study Guide Zone website. We love that its resources are designed according to different learning styles, such as visual learners or kinesthetic learners, even learners with ADHD.

Furthermore, it’s an excellent resource for high school students preparing for standardized tests and exams. There’s an abundance of practice tests, flashcards, and study guides for college entrance exams, such as SAT, ACT, and LSAT.

With support from the likes of Johns Hopkins University and Duke University, Coursera offers a wide range of online degrees, courses, and specializations in diverse disciplines. These are developed, taught, and evaluated by experts and professors in their fields of expertise, and allow for self-paced learning, although many courses have set start and end dates or have specific schedules.

Peer grading and assessments as well as financial aid are available, too. Students who want to earn certificates in addition to their online degrees should consider Coursera.

Students looking for online study tools that will improve their writing performance are well-advised to get Grammarly, a digital writing assistant and grammar checking tool. The most useful features are grammar and spelling check, style and clarity suggestions, and plagiarism checker. Students can also set writing goals and receive feedback and suggestions based on them.

Grammarly can be downloaded to all your devices, too, and enables browser extensions and integrations. There’s is a free version, but the premium version is recommended for its advanced features.

If you’re a visual learner who wants an online study tool with your learning style in mind, then get the Otter.ai app! The transcription and note-taking service transcribes spoken word into written text, thanks to artificial intelligence, in real time.

With its search features, users can also search for certain words and phrases within the text, as well as edit and share the transcriptions. Indeed, this is among the best productivity apps for college and grad students who want to stay on top of online lectures.

This has long been considered the holy grail of formatting guides. There is a big chance that your professors will direct you to Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) for all of your MLA and APA needs.

College and grad students agree that its writing and research guides, citation style guides, and sample papers make their academic writing skills and performance better. There are also exercises and quizzes, writing workshops, and subject-specific writing resources available.

Freshman college students can experience difficulty during the high school-to-college transition period. Fortunately, there’s the TED-Ed Students Talks, a platform on the TED-Ed website specifically designed for students.

Here, useful videos address common and uncommon issues among students, such as imposter syndrome, physical and mental stress, and even bullying. There’s also an abundance of educational and academic videos on diverse topics and online study resources.

College students usually write academic papers on a wide range of subjects, many of which are on unfamiliar topics. This is where ThoughtCo comes in, an educational website that has an extensive library of resources and articles on diverse topics.

Nearly everything offered in academic disciplines, from STEAM to humanities, liberal arts, and business, have relevant articles here. Study tools, tips and guides are also available.