Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
~ Benjamin Franklin ~
The quest for knowledge is fundamentally a constant affair and a boundless pursuit; whether you are still a student or already a working professional, the pleasure of learning should be a self-directed and ingrained mindset in life. Thankfully, with the advancement of technology and accessibility of information, you can now maximize what you can possibly learn.
Here are 5 mobile applications that will surely inspire you to get involved in facilitating your own learning and develop a thirst for acquiring knowledge.
1) Follow the News with Feed.ly
Feed.ly is an RSS content aggregator and a simple yet powerful dashboard for which to read news. This app allows you to take control and customize what sort of news you want to receive (based on the themes and keywords you input) and then consolidates them all into a clean newsfeed for your ease of reading. This is the most convenient way of keeping tabs on current affairs, sports and technology news etc. around the world!
2) Carry all that you can read with PDF Markup Cloud
Information can thought of as an omnipresent cloud. Hence, a tool is needed to store and manage such intangible materials.
PDF Markup Cloud is such a versatile app that lets you easily store PDF files, modify, and share them within your mobile device. Here is an example of its utilities. When you browse the Internet on your web browser, you can save interesting webpages as PDFs. You can then annotate, backup and share your important documents and markups with other users.
3) Free Education with Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a comprehensive education databank that was started by Salman Khan, an educator, after he started tutoring his little cousin Mathematics through self-created YouTube videos.
His simple idea of teaching online has since expanded to a diverse catalogue of educational videos covering numerous topics ranging from Art to Programming; which are created by specialists for the general population to view. Khan Academy even provides a personalized learning dashboard that empowers learners to study independently at their own pace. An added bonus is the ability to download videos to view later and on the go.
4) Expand your Mind with TED Talks
While Khan Academy provides instructional resources, TED’s slogan is “Ideas Worth Spreading”.. TED already has a huge database of podcasts and videos available online. The TED app is truly a convenient and awesome resource for you to gain new perspectives and understanding of the world. Some talks that are worth watching are “Do you schools kill creativity?”, “The power of introverts” and “Why we do what we do?”.
5) Break the Language Barrier with Duolingo
The last app on our list aptly (no pun intended!) embodies this awesome quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “A different language is a different vision of life.”
Duolingo teaches you the basics of a language right up to the intermediate level. The best part of it? They make learning languages a huge ball of fun to go through with exercises and games as well as with competition with your friends! Duolingo currently offers 13 languages classes, and is still expanding. This app is quintessential for anyone who wants to learn a language and open a window to the world!
Till next time, Happy Learning!