Face-to-face classes are back! Students are buzzing with excitement to meet their classmates in person and stretch out their legs after two years of sitting in front of the screen. But don’t think that schools are stepping back from the digital world– many students and teachers still heavily rely on computers to carry out their tasks.
We all know that computer literacy can take you far. It’s a necessary skill to hone for young’uns set to lay down their dream career path. Students know this very well and are more prepared than previous generations; they spent two years learning and executing projects online after all!
As a fresh graduate, I still know in my heart what students really, really want and need productivity-wise. Parents and guardians, take note! Give any of these to your kid and you’ll make their school year easier to manage.
Canva Pro (Php 2,490/year for 1 user)
Canva is an online graphic design platform that simplifies the design process. It has more than 100 million stock photos, videos, audio, and graphics and more than 600,000 templates and ready-to-use assets that you can mix and match. Students can make professional-looking presentations, logos, publication materials, and videos on Canva anywhere, anytime.
Canva Pro has been helpful to me as a student. Your kid can use this for solo and group presentations, simple video editing, logo making, and even publication materials for their organization/ club. On several occasions, I have used Canva Pro to create social media posts for my relatives’ businesses and for my personal projects! My verdict is: It’s convenient and almost essential, especially for students inclined towards digital marketing and graphic design.
Note: It’s free to use for students with a school domain email address. If the school does not provide one, the student may not be eligible for a free Canva Pro subscription.
Grammarly ($12 USD/ month)
For students, a week will not go by without a paper to write. Grammarly is an intuitive proofreading tool that checks grammar and spelling on your browser, word processor, and any applications you write in. It enhances the writer’s clarity, conciseness, and fluency by suggesting precise words, omissions, rephrasing, and more. It also mutes Filipinisms for those with overseas internships!
Instead of using Turnitin’s plagiarism checker (which has been a hassle to use in my experience), students can try Grammarly which can also gauge their paper’s percentage of plagiarism based on billions of web pages and ProQuest academic databases.
If your kid loves writing stories and articles or is about to write their thesis or term paper, they’ll be grateful to have Grammarly Premium.
Adobe Creative Cloud Apps for Students (Php 997/ month in the first year, Php 1,495/ month in the succeeding years)
Adobe Creative Cloud is a subscription-based collection of software that allows users to professionally edit videos and photos, create original graphic illustrations and assets, develop web applications, design page layouts, animate vector graphics, and more. This is best suited for students in computer science, advertising, and digital art, but any student can benefit from Adobe Creative Cloud. While they’re still in school, your kids can already learn these new applications which would be a helpful plus in their future resumes.
Course Hero ($119.40/ year, if ANNUAL PLAN)
Disclaimer: Gift your kid Course Hero WITH CAUTION!
It is an educational platform that provides students access to course-specific study resources; thus, students can view old test papers, practice problems, class notes, step-by-step solutions, and lecture videos. They can also get homework help from live tutors.
You probably see the issue; students can be prone to plagiarism and cheating if left to their own devices. However, Course Hero can still prove to be more beneficial than harmful for students who need additional academic guidance. There is a way around the risk of cheating if you believe that this may be the case. You can limit their access to Course Hero by registering with your account credentials so they can only use it under your supervision.
Headspace ($69.99 USD/ year, if ANNUAL PLAN; $99.99 USD/ 6 accounts/ year, if FAMILY PLAN)
Headspace is a popular mindfulness app that guides users in basic meditation, quality sleep, stress and anxiety management, pain management, and more. Stress is never going away, and the younger generation knows how important mental health is to their productivity and overall well-being. Subscribing to Headspace unlocks all content that can suit their current mood, lifestyle, and goals.
The whole family can jump in on a family plan. Headspace has a wide variety of content such as guided meditations, Sleepcast (an audio series that soothes the listener to sleep), workout videos, focus music, and inspirational morning videos.
Which digital student essential are you most interested in? Let us know on Facebook!
