Raven Leverett
Features Editor
The majority of college students have smartphones, but are students taking full advantage of free apps?
A survey study by The Chronicle of Higher Education from February 2009 to February 2014 revealed that 89 percent of students owned a smartphone in 2014 compared to only 29 percent of students owning tablets.
Further research on mobile learning suggests that students feel they have increased motivation to study with an app because it allows for study time outside of their “formal study space.”
Dropbox mobile
If you have ever taken a course by Dr. Leilani Goodmon in the psychology department then you would know about Dropbox.
Dropbox is a tool that can become a great asset for group projects because it is a way students can easily share documents. In addition, the groups can see when edits were made within the documents.
Not only can a student download the program on their computer, but they can also download the app on their Android or iPhone for FREE.
Mint
“Where do you keep your money…in your wallet? In your drawer? in a cookie jar?” Dr. Silviana Falcon, instructor of Business Administration and Enactus advisor, asked.
No matter where you keep it, Mint makes it easier to keep track of. Mint is a financial spending app that can help students keep track of their spending easier than writing it down.
According to mint.com, budgeting and investing is made easy with this app.
“These applications are mainly useful for tracking and categorizing your expenses while you use your debit card,” Falcon said. “They simply are linked to your bank account.”
In this case Falcon is referring to several apps that track spending such as Mint and iBank5.
Although Mint is free to download, iBank5 only offers a free trial and then the price increases significantly.
Portable Wifi Hotspot
The WiFi hotspot feature on Android phones lets you use your mobile data on multiple computers or tablets at once. Although it is free to download, the charges are administered by your carrier, but there is an entirely free alternative.
FoxFi is an alternative portable wifi app that is completely free. However it does not work with all devices and some carriers are blocking it from being downloaded. However, students can download it with the QR code in the Play Store for Android if they would rather use it.
Cam Scanner
Some students tend to take pictures with their phones of notes on the whiteboard after class. This app allows students to now not only take a photo, but email themselves the information from the photo in text format.
Apps Gone Free
This app tells “when apps that are normally paid being offered for free,” computer science major Jordan Finney said.
However, this app is only available on iPhone and iPad. A student would find this app beneficial because students always prefer free.
“I would rather go for a free app because I’m really picky about spending money,” Ryan Towne, computer science major, said.“I would rather deal with a few pesky ads rather than spending the $2 I could use for something else.”
“Although sometimes I might if it is something that is really needed,” Rick Chapman, computer science major, said.