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 With millions of high school and college students returning to
classes this month new apps are designed to help them improve group
collaboration, set and track deadlines and to keep lecture notes
better organized.
Asana, a recently launched app for iPhone and iPad, lets students
organize their course work and projects, track deadlines, and
collaborate with their classmates to keep up with their workload.
“Students have a lot of things going on campus, and on top of that
need to manage multiple notebooks and calendars. But with the app,
they can put everything in one place to stay on track,” said Kelsey
Aroian, a marketing associate at the San Francisco-based Asana.
With the free app, available worldwide in English, students can
create different workspaces for both course work and campus life.
They can also plan projects for each course and tasks based on
different assignments.
Deadlines, assignees and other content, such as lecture notes or
research, can be added to each task to keep everything in one place,
according to Aroian.
As deadlines approach, students receive reminders and can sync tasks
with their electronic calendars. They can also invite classmates to
collaborate on projects.
“It’s a much more cohesive approach than the email you might be
sending to accomplish the same thing, or other discombobulated
attempts at keeping track of projects,” said Aroian.
Another app called Notability lets students write their notes while
recording a lecture, and syncs the notes with the audio. The app
costs $2.99 and is available on iOS devices.
Talkboard, a free iPad app, allows students to invite classmates to
share a virtual whiteboard to brainstorm ideas together and view
each other’s sketches in real-time.
Twoodo, free for iOS and Android devices, is promoted as a team
collaboration tool for the hashtag generation. Students can organize
discussions, to-do lists, notes and events using Twitter-style
hashtags and mentions.
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Others free apps such as Adobe Voice, for making videos, and Haiku
Deck, for making presentations, provide simple ways of getting ideas
across quickly.
Jason Womack, executive coach and founder of the coaching company
Get Momentum, said students are increasingly using task management
systems.
“The bright and shiny perception is that there must be an app that
does it better,” said Womack. “But it’s not about the tool. Apps
will only keep people on task as much as they put into it,” he said.
Womack said the apps can be helpful, but advised students to be
selective in choosing them.
“The more places I park reminders, the more time it takes. So if you
minimize the places things can go, you will maximize the time you
have when you’re there,” he said.
(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Andrew Hay)
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