By: Edileen Mendoza – September 22, 2020
When you hear the words “back to school,” you would have imagined stuff like schoolbooks, lecture halls, and school buses. However, due to this Covid-19 global pandemic, this year’s school curriculum offered a new form of schooling.
Though some schools are forced to close for the rest of the year, most classes may continue through online venues via video conferencing. Activities will be done via smartphones, tablets, laptops, or personal computers. This suggests that the school supplies list to be bought will look a bit shorter this time than in past years. You will also need to update your devices other than your books, pencils, and journals.
It’s quite overwhelming, most especially when you don’t even know how and where to start. But don’t worry, we got you covered with the help you need.
Here’s a list of helpful gadgets that can be on top of your online shopping cart as the first day of online school sneaks up closer to you.
Laptop
Laptops are essentially helpful for your online class. Laptops give you the chance to bring your classes around and out, access lectures, and even type notes if you find that easier than writing free hand.
This helpful gadget also offers portability that you study or do your research wherever and whenever—at your most convenient way and time.
Laptops can also make online learning more efficient. There are many applications you can download and use to help you in doing schoolwork. It also helps to get you organized. Laptops are essentially your backpacks, where everything you need for school is stored in one place.
Pen tablet
PDF and PowerPoint presentations are used extensively in schools. Notably, throughout these health crises and the immense demand for distance learning, the two tools are becoming more relevant than ever. Pen tablets are equipped with almost all the particular programs, PowerPoint and PDF, needed for distance learning. You can use a stylus that highlights assignments or reports when attending your online class. Aside from that, you can also annotate files or pictures and make graphs and complex functional equations easily.
This immediate visual connectivity enables you to respond to questions instantaneously and improve your understanding and retention.
On the same hand, if you’re worried about having lots of homework but don’t have a laptop or desktop, a pen tablet can help. It can be a more practical alternative for a laptop if you’re on a tight budget. You can effectively present your assignment showing the thorough problem-solving process.
Moreover, mobile devices can do almost anything but are limited to handwriting, drawing, and calculation. That is where the problem may occur; it can reduce your productivity because the screens on mobile platforms are not handwriting friendly.
Consider getting your mobile phone wired to a pen tablet. Most pen tablets are Android-devices compatible and come with a 10 x 6.25-inch standard screen display, which means a much more extensive handwriting area. Plus, the stylus operates like a regular pen, with no batteries needed and thus no charging. You may feel like you are working on real paper in that way.
Smart Notebook
Note-taking is essential in learning. You can have your key notes on a laptop or rather stay the conventional way jotting down and using a sheet of paper but using a smart notebook to write and store your notes is a lot quicker.
Research emphasizes that longhand notetaking helps you effectively access and maintain long-term information, which are helpful during exams.
With a smart notebook, you could make the best experience of taking down notes using longhand. You can implement better elements of both handwriting and digital records. You have a choice to create handwritten notes quite as usual with a smart notebook and save it electronically. Use an application to snap a screenshot or take a photo of the page after making your notes. After that, your notes will become a digital file; you can conveniently store on any device. You can either upload, edit, or convert to a more accessible file online later.
Portable Charging Pack
Since everything is done online, you wouldn’t love to end up with a dead battery. Thus, you need a portable charging kit. The latest mobile phone batteries can get better, but they won’t last all day. A dead battery can easily ruin a particularly important online class.
A portable charging kit helps avoid such situations. You could take that along with you anywhere and use that to keep a longer life for your phone or tablet’s battery.
Noise-cancelling Headphones
Noise-canceling headphones are great for students with lots of deadlines and would like to avoid excessive noises from disturbing them. It will help block out the noise around you and focus on your research once you have another work lined up to do for the next day. Not only that, but they’re also perfect for daily use, having your classes and relaxing at home without getting disturbed.
There is a wide selection of headphones available today, so what you’ll get will depend on your budget. If you invest a little more money, you’ll be getting durable and scientifically tested models.
Power Strip
Getting a power strip in your room is creating an accessible charging hub of all the devices in your place, at the same time simple.
Your room is supposed to be a comfortable and conducive place to have your online class. Power strips could be used to arrange anything in your room. You can all have your tv, game console, reading lamp, mobile phone charger, laptop charger, and more in one convenient location.
Power strips are flexible and can be mounted anywhere in a room and positioned around the chair feet, bed frames, or any other hurdles you might have in your room. You can also get up to three meters long, and then you have full control of where the wires are heading.
Wireless Bluetooth Speaker
Generally, you could maximize your learning if you thoroughly understand what your teacher is trying to discuss. It’s possible if you have a nice and working Bluetooth speaker. The Bluetooth feature makes it tidier and easier to use as you don’t have to deal with plugs and wires. Bluetooth speakers provide clearer audio of your instructor’s lessons. The best thing about a portable speaker is you could take it anywhere; then, you can have clear audio whenever the need arises.
And if you’re just in your bedroom doing a little assignment, it’s always nice to listen to some relaxing music using your Bluetooth speaker.
Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants like Google Home Mini and Alexa are some of the most interesting tech bits that popped up this decade. It would be unimaginable, years ago, that you would power your music, your lights, and more to do with your voice alone. Taking advantage of it and using it to change your lifestyle is a brilliant product of innovation. Having your private assistant will start making your lessons a lot easier to schedule. Rather than having to recall all your coursework, lectures, and necessary meetings, you could let your virtual assistant manage everything for you and notify you with reminder notifications to make sure that no important lesson is missing.
The Bottomline
A successful and effective online learning experience can be achieved with your dedication and commitment. Learning can also be more meaningful and lasting with the help of sophisticated gadgets. Please go over the suggestions listed above and try to boost your efficiency and productivity during your online class.
When have all these gadgets set and ready, and still find your online learning daunting? Do not hesitate to ask for help from trusted and reliable learning platforms. Check on Chalkboard’s pool of competent tutors to help you out with online learning. They’re just a click away and will provide you with the end-to-end solution to your learning needs.
