How to use Laptop and Internet more effectively as a Student?

Well, that should be a query worth its salt. Given the fact that students have been using laptop and internet connection a lot these days, it would be practical to find ways to use them in an efficient way.

Prepare your laptop in advance
Check the tools and software you need and install all the necessary items in advance on your system. This will help you avoid searching for a software and falling prey to illegitimate software at a later stage. Some of the much-needed tools include Driver software, Anti virus, PDF reader, Media player, MS Office, WinRAR and photo viewer among others.

Avoid distractions
Avoid installing any programs that may distract you. Music and games are the major types of files from that perspective. If you have them on your system, it should be practical to remove them.

Limit internet browsing
Limit the amount of internet surfing . In fact, you should avoid surfing for anything other than what you need academically. Unnecessary browsing leads to a never ending cycle of further browsing that can result in wasting your time.

Stay away from social media
Too much of social media can be a vicious cycle. Avoiding social media sites like Facebook and Twitter completely as a student would be the best you should do. Setting standards for yourself and abiding by them should be your aim.

Online tests
Taking online tests on your subjects can be a good idea to improvise on your performance. That way you can realize what are your weak points and can concentrate on those areas.

Communicate with your teacher
Use Hangouts or any other such messengers to discuss your doubts with your teacher. That way you will be able to keep in touch with your teacher for sorting out your queries. You can also discuss with your friends, but please remember to restrict the discussions to academic area alone with your friends.

That's a blessing that most of the students are now equipped with this latest technology. Things would be easier, quicker and more accurate, than the time when these were not at their disposal. Keeping the health hazard aside, this duo can make wonders in a student's life. Now at this stage, where we are encouraging concept like, "Digital India", there's no point in discouraging the usage of laptop and the internet anymore.
So, here's how you make the optimum usage:

1. Use the Internet for instant source of Information.
We associate students with books and library, But time has changed. If you need a small but important information right at this moment, the internet can provide you at the blink of an eye, and there's no point in wasting time by standing in the queue to get your books issued and browse through not so important pages to find that.

2. Use your laptop-internet combination for your assignments
Whether you are in a junior or secondary school level, in college or in university, projects are bound to come where you have to submit your assignments in a stipulated period of time. You might require images, graphs, charts etc. for your assignments. Your laptop would come as your best help in those hours.

3. Use the Alarm & Clock
The most important thing in student life is time management. there is an Alarm & clock app for the Windows. There are options like Timer and Stopwatch. You can use it for writing or studying any topic within a time limit. You can also set a time for your entertainment, within which you should finish it up, or simply pause it for the next free time.

4. Use the Testing Apps
There are many testing apps available in the store, for example, practice papers for GRE, GMAT, TOEFL or whichever level you are studying. You can practice these papers online and prepare for the exams much in advance.

5. Improve your language skills
Language comes first when you are appearing for an exam, The Internet is flooded with language improvement apps. Each student should use this regularly to improve his/her language skills, which could be done free of cost, without spending extra time for attending extra classes. Though these apps are not equal to human teaching, one can surely improve using these, as it eliminates the embarrassment issue.

Hope this would help.

Here are some of the ways Students can use computers and internet effectively.

Use WolfRam Alpha for Mathematics Problems

This search engine is known for accepting mathematics input or any scientific query such as chemistry formulas, physics notations etc. And it can provide some of the quality results. Note that it is not commercial search engine like google. It has it's own computational engine that answers. For students who want math help, this search engine can be really handy.

Use KhanAcademy for GRE, SAT and MAT Test Preparation

KhanAcademy is a free resource that prepares students with their explainer videos. It can cover a lot of syllabus for the international tests. If the student wants to prepare for the international education, then these tests are very important. I think using these videos can definitely help for preparing for the test.

Use Myhours for Time tracking

You can use myhours for tracking your time being spent on the study. You can mark some specific time period for each study. And then based on that decide where you should spend more or less time. This can be more handy when you are preparing for the competitive exams.

Use Britannica over Wikipedia

Many universities and colleges are given discount accounts for the library. And you can use Britannica in your college library. The reason many educational institutes are using Britannica is because you can find that Wikipedia content has lot of inaccuracy. Lot of wrong information can affect the learning experience. So better use the Britannica over any other free resource which has lot of incorrect information.

Use Duolingo for Foreign Language

Duolingo is known for the best app for learning the foreign language. You can find that it can teach you spanish, french and few other languages just fine. You have to do some tasks everyday and check your progress. For learning spanish especially this app can be really good. You can alternatively use Youtube for the lessons on the language.

Use YouTube for various Skills and Training Videos

YouTube is a gold mine that contains a lot of information on various skills and training videos. It can help you prepare for interviews and also for some of the other training. And this means you can learn from it. Just make sure you are subscribed to proper channel. As lot of channels are not good in terms of content and many of it's content is objectionable.

Apart from these there are plenty of sites which may require subscription and they can be useful for learning. See if you can find free alternative if you can't afford that. Make sure to use the time wisely on the internet. The reason being it can end up wasting your precious hours and you may not be able to justify wasted time during the student years.