By: Kate Reiniche
January 18, 2021
Online learning has been tough on many of us this year as many people have had trouble absorbing information and staying focused when we have been learning through a computer screen. Part of the difficulty is our brains have been wired to learn in-person for all our past years in school and due to the pandemic we suddenly had to rewire our brains to learn remotely without access to many of the tools that have helped students succeed throughout the years. As we continue to adapt to learning remotely here are some tools that may help you stay organized throughout the semester.
1) Notion
Notion is a website and app that serves as an alternative to a physical planner. Marketed on their website as an “all-in-one workspace”, Notion allows you to design an online space, almost like a personal website that is outfitted with tools to help you stay on track. One of the best parts of Notion is that it gives you creative freedom to design your page however you want. You get to choose your page’s color scheme and you can add images and subpages. For reference my Notion Dashboard is pictured below. It’s still a work in progress, but I have been using it to keep track of when assignments are due and to keep up my New Year’s resolution (which is adding a new song to a playlist each day). Although learning how to use Notion may seem daunting, the website has a gallery of pre-made templates that you can customize to get you started. It is also very useful as not only an academic space, but as a place where you can organize your thoughts and hobbies. For example, I have a music subpage where I am adding songs I want to learn on guitar and making a table where I am reviewing all the albums I want to listen to. I also want to create a page on all the recipes I want to bake.
2) Flora
A difficult part of online learning is not being able to be in a classroom environment that is mostly free of distractions. It can become hard to separate school from the rest of your life as we do school in the same space we sleep and eat. Flora is an app and Google Chrome extension that helps to eliminate some of these distractions and get you into a mindset where you can focus on school work. The way it works is you set a timer on the app for however long you want to study for. When you start the timer a virtual tree starts growing in the app and gets larger as the timer goes one. If you focus for the entire time period you will have a fully grown tree to add to your “garden”, but if you leave the app or stop the timer the tree “dies.” As you focus for more time you unlock new plants to grow.
3) Slides Carnival
Slides Carnival is a website that has several fun templates for your Google Slides and PowerPoint presentations. There are a variety of choices for any sort of project from basic to bright and colorful. It is a great tool to spice up presentations and give students a creative outlet that they may have lost because of social distancing. To use a template all you have to do is download it from the website onto your choice of presentation software and customize it to fit your needs.
4) Monkey Type
Many people have had to type much more than they have in the past as almost all assignments are online. Monkey Type is a website to help refine your typing skills so you can work more quickly and efficiently. How it works is you are given a timer and a string of words to type as fast, but as accurately as possible. When the timer is up, you will receive a report of your typing skills that includes things like your words per minute and your percent accuracy. You can adjust the settings so that you can work on different typing skills like long words or a shorter timer. Using this website to work on your typing skills is a great way to take a break while still doing something productive.
Online schooling is a stressful time and I hope these tools are able to help alleviate stress even if just a little bit. As important as school is, make sure to always take breaks and do the things you love so you don’t burnout as that is particularly easy to do right now. Remember that although times may be tough right now, it will eventually get better.