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3 Great Online Tools to Improve Study Skills and Get Better Grades

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3 Great Online Tools to Improve Study Skills and Get Better Grades

Nov. 3rd, 2009 By Simon Slangen

While I’m writing this, I should actually be studying for my math exam tomorrow. Still, I wanted to tell you about how the internet can improve your study skills and help you out with your grades.

Most people will advise you to power down your laptop while learning and burying it somewhere in your back yard until you’re finished, or at least under a pile of clothes in a dark corner of your dresser. I disagree.

Although you mustn’t venture off to Facebook, or go writing articles (you’re smarter than that, aren’t you?), the internet can prove invaluable with helping you master the substance. Below are three online applications that’ll perform miracles for your study skills and, hopefully, for your results as well.

Create Flash Cards with FlashcardExchange

Flash cards are nothing new, and you don’t need the internet to make them. But if you want some truly random questioning, or simply hate using a pen (like I do), there’s an online alternative to improve your flash card study skills.

A web app does not only spare you a lot of work (and more importantly, time), but opens a ton of new possibilities as well.

fce

I can call FlashcardExchange the best online flashcard tool without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. You can create flashcards online, using text or images, and store them on your account. Study using the online web interface, export it to one of the popular offline file formats, or waste some ink by printing them out.

Create Mindmaps with Web Seavus Dropmind

With most classes, it pays to create a visual representation of the information at hand. Making schemes and mindmaps is a study skill that will not only make some concept easier to grasp, they will be easier to remember as well. Online mindmaps are easier to adjust (put away that rubber, those times are past), and evidently offer a variety of additional features.

dropmind3

Personally, I use Seavus Dropmind. It’s a retail application if you want to access all features, but you’ve got more than enough possibilities with the free version. The main disadvantage is that you can only work with one mindmap at a time, but because the canvas is infinitely big, that doesn’t matter much.

There’s an extended review on MakeUseOf here for those interested. In the comments of said article, our readers also suggested MindMeister as an alternative.

Create Cheat Sheets with PocketMod

When I’m say cheat sheets, I try to use it as a figure of speach. I advise strongly against trying to cheat during an exam, and between you and me, there are smaller, smarter and more practical alternatives if you’re really planning to do so.

Use cheat sheets to condense your study material into smaller packages. Use it to list calculus and physics formulas, and to gather the most prominent definitions on one page.

pocketmod-booklets.jpg

PocketMod is an incredibly original project. You can create and lay-out small booklets online, with different page styles, and print them on standard A4 paper. After a few scissor cuts and a bare minimum of folding work, you’ve got yourself a pocket-sized tiny book.

True, this might take a little bit longer than using a plain piece of paper, but what is an exam without at least a tiny bit of procrastination?

Do you know any other good sites to use the internet, or your computer as a learning aid to improve your study skills? Tell us and your fellow MakeUseOf students all about it in the comments section below!

(By) Simon is a student and tech enthusiast from Belgium. On MakeUseOf, he's the primary gaming writer and eBook editor. Check Simon out @ http://meme.yahoo.com/slangen/

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