Blog: Apps for easing homework pains

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Martin Beck, Staff Reporter

If you find yourself perpetually trapped in homework’s jaws, your life can start to feel like some cruel, vicious cycle of school-homework, school-homework, school-homework (immediately followed by school-homework, school-homework, school-homework.) It’s soul sucking, to say the least. Before you submit to your routine and acknowledge that free time is simply a happy memory you can cherish, remember this: you live in the 21st century.

The Internet holds all sorts of bell and whistles to make homework less excruciating. Without further ado, I present my non-comprehensive list of homework-quickening devices.

WabbitStudio

Your average TI-84 graphing calculator costs upwards of $120. Your math class might offer calculators for in class use, but what is a calculator-less student to do when completing homework? The answer, fortunately, is not to shell out 120 bucks. If you’re about to buy a graphing calculator, stop! Close the Amazon tab, leave the Best Buy. Put away your wallet.

You can download a graphing calculator emulator for a grand total of zero bucks using WabbitStudio (Windows, OSX, Android). Once you save the program, choose which calculator you want to use (TI-73, TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, TI-83+(SE), TI-84+(SE), TI-84+CSE, TI-85, or TI-86) and voila, a virtual calculator appears on your screen. It can perform all the functions of your average $120 model and, best of all, never runs out of batteries.

Google Keep

If you’ve ever struggled to remember your to-dos, but are planner-phobic, Google Keep is the app for you. You can create as many digital sticky notes as your heart desires, color code them by subject, then input whatever homework you have. You can scan in worksheets/syllabi for easy reference.

Or, if you’re working on a group assignment, you can create checklists and share them with your groupmates (akin to how you would share a file in Google Drive). Google Keep is available as a desktop site or as an Android app.

Wolfram|Alpha

Folks, if you’ve ever yearned for a supercomputer, this is the next best thing. You can feed Wolfram|Alpha an equation and it will solve it within a matter of seconds. You can feed it a system of equations, if you’re feeling zealous. Wolfram|Alpha will plot points for you. It’ll graph parabolas, hyperbolas, circles, triangles, lines, you name it. It’s a great way to visualize math problems beyond what a graphing calculator can achieve.

The usefulness of Wolfram|Alpha extends beyond mere mathematics. You can ask it about dates in history, geography, music theory, etc.

The desktop site will spit out an answer to a math problem, but not show you the step by step process to solving the problem. However, you can buy “Wolfram|Alpha Pro” ($3.75/mo for students), which will show you the steps, as well as a slew of other features. If you’re not the affluent type, you can purchase an iOS or Android app for $2.99, which will show you the steps without the monthly fee.

Paper Rater

If you’re sick and tired of double checking your paper’s grammar and spelling (because, as you know, your word processor only catches so many mistakes) or you’re questioning the quality of your writing, Paper Rater is for you. Once you run your paper through Paper Rater’s system, it will analyze spelling, grammar, word choice, style, vocabulary, check for plagiarism, then assign you a letter grade.

Paper Rater is also encouraging, if you need an ego boost.

“Excellent work! Your usage of sophisticated words is on par with other well-written papers!”

“Great job! Your usage of transitional phrases is well above average!”

Of course, encouraging as they may be, the apps on this list can only do so much. Ultimately, the best tactic for getting homework done is, you know, doing work the old-fashioned way. If you just can’t seem to get working, there’s always Time Warp (Chrome)–a browser extension that blocks distracting sites for a set period of time.

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