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When asked “What distracts you the most when revising?”, there is no dispute that the mobile phone would be one of the top responses. But can this creator of disturbance become a beacon of greater learning?
Childwise monitor reported in 2016 that 94% of 15-16 year olds have their own smart phone, with 79% downloading apps on a regular basis, there is a far greater opportunity for this little device to become a tool for more efficient learning than a threat to study.
Here at Compare and Recycle we have a few tips to help you decide whether you should ban or embrace the mobile phone during study times.
There are a lot of Apps out there that claim to facilitate learning, but there are only a few that really go far and away beyond proving that people can learn anything given the correct tools. This is especially true for students looking to try and get a different perspective on a subject that might not be registering.
As a non-profit educational organisation, Khan academy has a huge range of resources on the website covering most subject including all those within the GCSE curriculum. The only obstacle being that the subjects are set to the American Curriculum, which is fine for subjects that transfer over, like Maths and Science, but for some of the humanities based subjects of History, Geography and English may require further research.
The revision method used here is to challenge the learner immediately on the subject after providing short. This is great for the student that learns by doing and repeating, the short bitesize videos and podcasts work great.
There are services available in the UK that look to cater to the tech focussed teenagers by providing a useful portal for them to enhance their learning. These services are usually subscribed to on a school basis but sites like gcsepod.com offer an individual subscription package of around £200+VAT for the parent that does want to provide a kid with UK focussed learning package.
This application provides bitesize videos and podcasts that allows the students to take in the information from all the subjects based on the actual curriculum. This application is perfect for the child that learns best by listening.
The British Broadcasting company has been helping teenagers with their GCSE’s (and all exams) since 1998 and this year is no different, with up to date curriculum for all 37 subjects covered by the England exam board.
With learner guides, class clips and practice exams and answers, there is a wealth of information available on the portal. The sheer volume of information available can feel a little overwhelming for the students that need the most help.
For something a little less polished, but with the same information there are multiple apps that have the information out of the textbooks for revision on the move. There are free and paid varieties with the best being GCSE 2017 on iPhone and Android for straight reading.
The smart phone acts as an outlet to the entire world of communication, knowledge games and funny pictures. This can be a *little *distracting. But not to worry, there are ways to log off and keep motivated for learning without resorting to locking the phone away if you do want to keep to the school-provided revision books.
Forest app works on the principal that we can boost productivity by working in short doses, in that you plant a seed and for every half hour you don’t touch your phone. With this, you can create your own Forest or acquire new types of trees.
Making a request that they go up revising and come down with a forest full of trees for some reward as you know that they have resisted the urge to play on their phone. Perfect for the aspiring botanist!
There are a lot of different white noise generators if that is what works for you, there are studies to say that white noise helps block out distractions and allows for deeper concentration.
Everyone is going to have methods of revision that works better for them, the trick is finding what method works best and facilitating the revision the best way possible. Whilst locking the phone away can be a surefire method of ensuring distraction is kept away, you are also locking away access to some of the most helpful resources available.
As each year progresses, it seems as though AI and GenAI is being woven into our society creating more and more innovative tech advancements. From generated text, images, videos and even technology that works to detect cancer, you can expect AI to be able to create all types of content and task completion which is only to be improved on in 2025.
The environmental cost of our gadgets often go unnoticed. Mobile phones in particular contribute significantly to e-waste and resource depletion. But what if your next phone purchase could keep the planet in mind?
When you have kids, it’s always quite handy to have some sort of gadget or activity to keep them entertained especially when travelling or just out and about. In this blog we share with you the best tablets for kids depending on age, ranging from Apple to Amazon.
