Five Great iPad Apps for Students

When school time rolls around, many students will have got their hands on a shiny, new iPad. The question is, how can students make the most of this device to help them manage their educational activities better. As with many Apple devices, it’s all about the apps. With thousands to choose from, it can be difficult to select the best ones. That’s why we’ve done the work for you with our pick of five iPad apps no student should be without.

Springpad

Everyone raves about note taking app Evernote, but we like Springpad, which offers similar functionality and is easy on the eye, too. The free Springpad app integrates with your iPad to let you seamlessly save all the stuff you think is worth noting to a series of notepads. You can also tag entries, which gives you multiple ways to find things. It’s a great organizational tool!

Dragon Dictate

Ever needed to take notes on the fly and then have them transcribed? Then Dragon Dictate is what you need. The iPad version of the popular Dragon Naturally Speaking and MacSpeech program, this app allows you to dictate anything you want to remember, as well as emails and text messages. With a bit of training, accuracy is close to perfect – and you will soon be taking voice notes up to five times faster than you could write them. This app is so good that we can’t believe it’s free!

iStudiez Pro

$2.99 is a small price to pay for an iPad app that can help you keep track of your schedule. iStudiez Pro app is intended for students managing timetables, so it’s more than just a calendar. The planner can cater for alternating and block schedules, and allows you to input contact information and office hours for all your professors. You can also track holidays, extra curricular activities, homework and exams, making this a good all round app for students.

MLA/APA References

OK, we’ve cheated a little bit here, by including two related apps. iSource MLA and iSource APA are the answer to a prayer for every student who’s ever struggled to compile a bibliography in the right format. Just input some basic information and the apps poll their database, fill in the blanks and generate a neat entry in the correct format. No need to sweat over bibliographies any more with these apps.

Rate My Professors

Rate My Professors won’t help you with note taking, referencing or your study schedule, but it does provide something every student needs sometime – a chance to take back some control and pick professors and classes with great ratings. Check out your teachers before you enroll and save yourself some trouble – and if you do make a bad choice, then you can get your revenge by submitting a rating of your own.

There you have it – our picks of the iPad apps for students. It goes without saying that these also work on your iPhone and iTouch so you can have access to them wherever you go.

This was a post by Lior Levin who works for an MA in Israel program from the university of Tel Aviv.

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