Websites For Students: 10 Online Learning Tools
When I was in elementary school I was very annoyed by all this studying. But my idea and hope was that once I was done with school, I would also be done learning. I couldn’t wait.
Thus I was rather irritated when I heard that my dad had to complete training for his job to learn new things. I remember I asked him when one would be done learning and the essence of what he said was of course never. Bummer!
Some 20 years later I’m still a student and I know I’ll never get done learning. So hang in there and enjoy it! Here are my favorite websites for students.
1. Chemistry
Dynamic Periodic Table
This periodic table helps in keeping elements apart. You can highlight them by their aggregate state (solid, liquid, gas, unknown) or group (nonmetals with subgroups and metals with subgroups). Clicking on an element or group will launch a separate window with the matching Wikipedia article.
Periodic Table of the Elements
This periodic table is more compact than the previous one and it’s great for a quick summary for each element. As can be seen in the screenshot below, all elements are represented by a matching image and clicking on it launches a small information window.
2. Biology
Foldit
Foldit is not really a tool you’ll need for your everyday biology class. BUT it can help you understand something about proteins AND help scientists at the same time. Basically it’s a game and it’s your task to build protein molecules based on previously described structures.
Simon has reviewed the tool in detail in his article Foldit – Solve Puzzles for Science.
3. Mathematics
Mathway
This is an online tool that will help solve your maths challenges. Just enter the “problem statement”, select a subject and hit solve for the solution including the steps taken to get there.
Varun previously wrote about Mathway – A Step By Step Mathematics Problems Solver.
SpeedCrunch (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Unlike Mathway, this is a very powerful desktop calculator that contains a ton of helpful libraries for various maths problems.
Damien just recently introduced this tool in all its depth, so check out his piece SpeedCrunch – High Precision Freeware Desktop Calculator.
4. Languages
LiveMocha
This is a social network for learning languages. While you are helping others to improve their skills in your native language, they may help you improve a foreign language you are struggling with. They may even help you with your French homework.
Saikat wrote a thorough review of LiveMocha – Small The Coffee & Learn The Lingo.
VerbaLearn
With VerbaLearn you can improve your English vocabulary with online study sessions. The tool learns with you, keeping a record of your progress and weaknesses. You can listen to your study list offline to better memorize the words and practice the pronunciation and online you can read examples of how the word is being used.
The tool was recently introduced by Tim: Practice Your Vocabulary With VerbaLearn.
Bullfighter (MS Word and Powerpoint plugin)
Similar To VerbaLearn, this tool is designed to improve your use of the English language. The tool will analyze your texts for jargon. The higher your Bull Composite score, the higher the chance people will actually understand what you are trying to say.
James has written about Bullfighter – Simplify Your Writing & Gain Results.
5. Literature
wePapers
On this website people can share and expand their knowledge for free. You can read the material others have provided and upload your own papers to contribute to the community.
Zotero (Firefox extension)
When composing an assignment or a thesis you have to reveal your sources. Zotero is a Firefox extension that can help you keep track of your references and organize a citation bibliography for Open Office or MS Word documents.
Mixed Literature Resources
Struggling to find cheap college text books? These resources collected by Nick may help: The Top 5 Sites To Find Your College Textbooks. Are you a medical student who’s looking for resources online? Have a look through Jackson’s list of The Best Reference Sites For Medical Students. Maybe you need to improve your writing and homework? I wrote about 7 Online Resources To Help You Improve Your Writing and Where To Research Material For Your Homework.
Finally, you may also find Ken’s article on 10+ Web Tools To Save Your Butt In School very helpful.
How do you use the internet to get through school?
Picture credits: amr_safey
(By) Tina has been writing for MakeUseOf since late 2007.
It is a very good collection and helpful for students.Thank you for compiling the list and here students can try physics@www.physicspractice.com
Another web to learn languages: http://www.busuu.com
Thanks! ^^
I have been using Mathway for 1 semester and it is very usefull because it gives you step-by-step solutions. However, the answer that it provides isn´t always right.
Did you not click through the tabs on the first periodic table? It’s got so many features it’s ridiculous. It’s kind of lame to put that second one up that doesn’t do anything.
Of course I clicked through it Lou and it’s amazing. However, I still liked the second one because of its short summaries and its different layout. Although it is lacking some useful features, I think it is less overwhelming for the average student, who doesn’t need all the details and may just want to put a “face” or an image to the name, rather than a ton of even more numbers.
Engineering, design and architecture students should check out http://students.autodesk.com – Autodesk makes quite a bit of their software available for free to students on this site and there are lots of tutorials, etc.
I personally used http://mynoteit.com for a a few years to store all my notes, grades, and work on group projects with friends. It was a life saver for sure
Good stuff. Some other related resources:
Kids Chinese Club
Advancing Learning Forum
Please don’t forget Paul Halsall’s History Sourcebooks from Fordham University.
These are invaluable for students of all levels, from high school to graduate students. This website collocates like primary source material together in a convenient location.
Thanks for sharing Abraham!
The best literature resource site is BookRags.com.
Nice! But what about Cramster (cramster.com)?
Wow… love the post. I’ll be looking into all of these tools. The maths ones look good especially!
What? No mention to sclipo? Hum. Thanks for this nice list, anyway!
Wow this was great. I use the internet mainly for learning. Wish there were more of these types of posts. THANKS!
CollegeBanana is coming soon! Students get ready!
i just started using this semester. has been ridiculously useful.
The best site I know of for getting cheap textbooks is http://www.mynextcollege.com. I save at least $300 per semester using it – now that’s a nice tool!
I really appreciate your post – I’m trying to teach myself french & tje mochalive looks very useful-thanks!!!
Tina,
I liked your article! For readers who are interested in annotating research that you come across online, you should also check out WebNotes. See the MakeUseOf article here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-the-web-your-notepad-with-webnotes-100-invites/
Or you can see our demos at http://www.webnotes.net.
Cheers,
Alex
Check out http://www.enotes.com/q-and-a Best Q and A site I’ve found by far… real teachers.
Another great site is Cramster.com, which allows users to post questions on Q&A boards, review thousands of step-by-step textbook solutions, and generate customized quizzes. Unlike some of the sites listed above, Cramster allows users to get help from fellow students and educators.
How could I forget– an excellent tool for students that need to coordinate schedules and stay organized– Courses 2.0
http://www.econgoodies.com for economics stuff
I definitely agree that livemocha is just plain amazing
cool tools for student
Great source I linked to it at http://recession.org
so mathway doesn’t give step-by-step help anymore unless you pay….
In case you are not aware of MySpeed yet, I want to share with you this productivity tool because it enables students to slow down video lectures or speed them up according to what would make students more easily comprehend the subject.
Teachers are also more at ease to capture their lectures online and just speak naturally, without worrying if the students thinks he talks too fast or slow, because each student can slow down or speed up the teacher’s video lecture on their own.
Thank you for sharing Celina! However, MySpeed is not free to use. On MakeUseOf we only report about free applications, which is why I won’t enter a link to it here.
I understand. Appreciate your reply.
(Comments wont nest below this level)mathway should be removed then
(Comments wont nest below this level)Why? It’s free, you don’t even need to sign up to have your problems solved. You need to sign in to see the step by step solution, but even that is free.
We do feature all useful applications that offer a free version (which Mathway does). If you can pay to unlock extra functions, such as saving your problems, that’s a different story – one we won’t cover.
No steps for calculus…..
I think I’ll try out that LiveMocha application, since I’m interested in foreign languages.
I’ve been using Mathway for a while now and simply love it. Good collection of tools list here. Got it in my book marks. Another very useful tools… subject independent is collaborative flashcards , it’s got tonnes of features and well worth using it! Thanks, John Easo.
What are the words … super
I’ve published a version of Periodic Table of the Elements.
Every element have a link to Wikipedia (Italian version, sorry).
I love the math website. Is there one for statistics problems or spss for solving problems?
Kindly Send me some good free links for video lectures/webased lectures for Engineering studies.
thanks& regards
Ashok
Please give a try to omnimemo.com = flascards + adaptive learning algorithms. It computes optimum intervals between your repetitions.
VERY USEFULL
I would like to add here a very useful website for students — http://www.TeacherLane.com ,India’s premium education services portal with a vision to create and inspire change on learning and teaching horizon by encouraging Student-Teacher collaboration through the web.
very useful collection….
thanks…
बहुत ही सराहनीय संग्रह……
धन्यवाद
(in Hindi)
very useful for me.
thanks…