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How to study using online apps

Everything today – including education – is becoming online. You must have come across numerous online videos and apps today, and must have tried a few also. While online help is better than offline in many ways – it helps to reach a large number of people and provide education in places where there exist no coaching centres, and students get exposure to quality education at a low cost.

But online education also comes with its cons –

• students easily get distracted while studying on mobiles or laptops by social media apps, notifications, etc
• the online information out there is so vast that students can easily get confused as to what to study and what to ignore
• Students also need to be careful about their syllabus and not get confused involving things that are out of syllabus

So how do we make the best out of online material, while tackling these issues? In this article, we will cover the following things –
– How to choose the right material online
– How to study online
– How to avoid getting distracted

1) How to choose digital learning resources –
There are a number of digital learning resources available for you, free or paid.
You can find tablets, videos on Youtube, articles on blogs etc. But while choosing an online resource to study from, always take care of the following –

– Choose an option that’s reliable and accurate. Many channels do not do proper research on a topic before giving out information. This might lead to more confusion or misconceptions in our mind. On Youtube, the Avanti teachers prefer channels like VSauce, Veritasium, TED-Ed etc.

– Syllabus coverage – The online material you are choosing should cover your entire syllabus, and not too much extra. Do not choose material by quantity, because a lot of times, you will end up spending time on things that are not in the syllabus.

– Paid / Free –
There are both types of material available online. But some points you should know are –
Free material is useful if you are only looking for a few chapters. If you are looking for entire syllabus, paid material is useful because it becomes a single solution for all your needs.

– Teaching style – Once you find some material or channel that you like, it is good idea to stick to it for the entire syllabus, because the teaching style suits you. However, before making this decision, make sure that the option you are choosing has everything you need, most importantly, video lectures and practice problems or tests.

2) How to study online –
– Pick a time of the day for your online study and always stick to it. Spending 1-2 hours everyday on your phone / laptop / tablet is a good duration. Too much time is also not a good idea because you need to be in a habit of reading and writing offline for your exams.

– The best use of online resources is for videos – as they make the subject easy, and for practice, because you get instant feedback even in the absence of a teacher.

– One good practice is to watch all the videos of a topic / chapter, then practice it, and then whenever you go wrong, watch the videos again to improve immediately.

3) How to avoid distractions –
– One simplest thing to do is – turn off all notifications when you are studying. Most phones have ‘silence’ or ‘do not disturb’ options that you can select.

– Set goals – You can set goals for your self, such as “I will open my favourite game only after I have finished Newton’s Laws of Motion”

– Uninstall the most addictive apps – If you are a student of class 9 to 12th, slowly start uninstalling apps that are most addictive for you. You don’t have to do everything at once, but the less distraction you have, the most chances of success you will have in your exams. If you want to continue to keep a hobby, choose something else such as painting or dancing or sports.