That’s right. It’s that time of year again. You’ll once again need to pay a visit to the campus store to buy some overpriced textbooks and the latest batch of alma mater-inspired clothing. Now that you’re heading back to school to further your education, you’ll probably want to make the experience as painless as possible too. Thankfully, the world of technology is behind you every step of the way.
You will still need to endure the droning monotone of your professors and put in the hours of study, but these don’t have to interfere with your digital lifestyle. In fact, there are plenty of gadgets that can automate your learning… or at least make it a little easier and a little more enjoyable.
Ready to hit the books?
Use an Automatic Coffee Maker on a Timer
Ask just about any student and they’ll tell you that they cannot live without their coffee. This is especially true during exam time when you’ll be burning the midnight oil java, trying to burn as much of that knowledge into your brain as possible. You could waste hundreds or even thousands of dollars at the local Starbucks, but it’s much more in line with the starving student budget to get a cheap coffee maker.
But you’re bound to sleep in, right? You don’t have the kind of time to put in a filter, toss in the grounds, and wait for the bloody thing to brew that delicious liquid gold. Thankfully, there are lots of coffee makers on the market that come with a timer function. By setting the timer the night before, you can ensure that your cup of coffee is ready for you when you finally manage to roll out of bed in the morning.
Better still, consider the convergence route with a more all-inclusive kind of kitchen appliance. This can be very useful for students living and studying in cramped dorm rooms. A great example of this is the Aroma Toaster Oven and Coffee Maker combination. It’ll brew coffee, toast your breakfast, and warm your buns for under $40.
This model doesn’t come with enough of a timer for the coffee maker side of the equation, but you can surely find something similar at your favorite local store.
Load Lectures Onto Your iPod for Info Osmosis
There are three parts to this equation to help improve your learning process and your ability to retain the information that you are attempting to remember. First, you probably shouldn’t do anything that Ralph Wiggum tells you to do, even if he choo-choo-chooses you.
Second, consider investing in a digital voice recorder. These can be relatively inexpensive and can be purchased just about anywhere. Ask for permission from your professor to place this at the front of the lecture hall and let it record the entire lecture. Alternatively, you can use a Flip Video UltraHD and record the lecture in full video.
Getting back to your place, download the audio (or video) file and upload the lecture to your iPod or other portable MP3 player. By taking this route, you can even choose to snooze away during class, listening to the lecture at your leisure. You can even let the lecture MP3 player in the background while commuting to school; you may absorb some teachings through sheer osmosis.
And don’t eat the glue. Otherwise, you might end up like Ralph.
Share Notes and Big Files with DropBox
For smaller files, it’s probably not difficult to exchange information with your classmates via email or instant messenger. These kinds of applications can easily handle a Word document or three, but what if you’re collaborating on a larger project that involves much larger files?
There are some free file sharing services on the Internet that seem like they cater to this market, but the links can expire and the performance may be less than ideal. Instead, I highly recommend that you sign up for a free account with DropBox. This serves several purposes. With DropBox installed on multiple computers, you can have the chosen files synchronized across all of these computers.
Also, even if DropBox isn’t installed on the receiving computer, you can send a direct link to any file stored in your Public folder. The best part is that it can handle several gigs of data for free and it’ll work across multiple platforms.
If you’re concerned about privacy, you can consider (free) local hosting through Opera Unite. While sharing notes, you can stream music directly from your classmates’s computers too.
A Few Steps Closer to that Paperless School Year
To my knowledge, most textbooks being assigned at college and university campuses are not yet available for purchases on the Amazon Kindle, but you can overcome this on your own. Rather than lugging around several heavy textbooks, get the beautifully designed BookDrive Mini from Atiz. Using a V-shaped solution, this is one of the most advanced book scanners on the market today. More entrepreneurial students may figure out ways to capitalize on this device’s capabilities.
For students who are living in cramped dorm rooms and want a book scanner that is a little more compact, they can look to something like the Plustek Book Reader. This is another scanner than can read your book pages and spit out PDF files for ease of transport.
With these PDF-ized textbooks in tow, you can then load them all onto your Amazon Kindle DX. Other Kindle devices have workarounds, but the bigger Amazon Kindle DX has native support for PDF files.
The PDFs on the Kindle DX are searchable (except for image-based files), the page numbers work, and you can switch to landscape mode if you prefer. On the down side, Read To Me doesn’t work, font sizes aren’t adjustable, and you can’t add notes (but you can highlight).
Maybe you want something even more portable than the Amazon Kindle. There’s a great app for the Apple iPhone that gives full PDF reading support to everyone’s favorite touchscreen smartphone. This presumably works with the iPod touch as well and it has been tested to work with iPhone OS 3.0.
The appropriately named PDF Reader Pro costs just $0.99. You can change the font size, use landscape view, synchronize over WiFi, jump to any page, remember the last viewed location, adjust the resolution for speed and legibility, bookmark pages, and read password-protected files.
I’d imagine that you wouldn’t want to read e-books and PDFs on your iPhone for an extended period of time, but this can be a great way to carry tons of useful information with you between classes. Feel free to whip out the iPhone during your lunch break for a quick cramming session.
Forget the Desktop. Get a Notebook.
Keeping a notebook is not only handy for the frequent business traveler, but it can also be a great solution for the student on-the-go too. Given the relatively minor difference in price between a comparable desktop and laptop, this is really a no-brainer for most students. I’ve been able to find a decently-equipped Asus notebook, complete with a discrete graphics and HDMI-out, for under $700.
By going with a laptop, you can leave your dorm room and go study at the local coffee shop, library, or student union building as needed. You can bring your laptop to class to write notes (and play Internet Reversi when the class gets particularly boring). Having a laptop also means that getting together for study sessions is a heck of a lot easier.
For the purposes of going to school, I would not recommend relying on a netbook as your primary computer. As nice as an Acer Aspire One or Asus Eee PC may be, these are meant to be companion or supplementary computers. They’re not your main unit. Some may even argue that netbooks are already obsolete, so I wouldn’t get one unless you already have a good desktop or laptop as your main computer.
Skip Frantic Scribbling with Slide Photos
A lot of professors and instructors organize their lectures using PowerPoint slides or something similar. If you happen to have a teacher who is nice enough to share these files with you online, you’re way ahead of the game. If you’re like most other students, you may feel pressured to write down everything from the slides as quickly as possible.
The problem? You’re bound to miss something.
Instead of frantically writing notes that you may not even be able to read afterward, it may be a better idea to use a webcam attached to your notebook or a digital camera. Even cheap refurbished cameras can be great for pictures of every important slide.
If you’re using a point-and-shoot, you can get one of those small desk-based tripods like the tiny Manfrotto ModoPocket, align everything, and then just hit the shutter as needed. This way, you can review the photos of the slides when you get back to your place, reviewing them at your own pace.
During class, you can actually try to pay attention and engage with the lecture rather than trying to keep up with the slides.
Remember Why You’re There: To Learn!
I guess you could pay attention during class, but if you’re more inclined to zone out and watch old Family Guy episodes, you might consider the Vuzix Wrap 920 video-glasses. The prof will think you’re just a dork with sunglasses.
When you’re at school, you may be interested in joining a club, going to a keg party, or getting together with some friends for some crazy Xbox Live action. That’s all fine, since you should be having fun at school, but you still need to get a passing grade.
No one said that college was going to be easy, but with the aid of some technological upgrades, the learning process might be that much easier. The iPhone 3G is about more than just fart apps lately and cheap digital cameras are more than for just drunken party pics. You can use them to learn too.
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