Best apps you’ve never heard of

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Photo by Eleya Raim.

by Kymee Noll – Horizon Co-Editor-in-Chief

As the new semester begins, so does the school work and stress.  Students are enrolled in classes they know nothing about and the “New Year, New Me” fad is upon us.  We need help!  If you weren’t aware, we have some tech-savvy teachers at Hesston College, and they want to assist us. In each issue we’ll offer up a few apps that will be relevant in your day-to-day life.  In this issue there are a few apps to help you with your schoolwork.

Writing Classes

News Now — Hourly newscast and the latest stories from NPR by Simon King (FREE)

Recommendation by Marissa King, writing and education instructor: “Listening (or reading) great writing helps college students know what good writing looks like.  NPR does a nice job acknowledging sources, transitioning logically, and using strong leads. I would love to see students listening to at least 5 minutes of the news every day.”

Description

News Now is a quick and easy way to hear the latest news from NPR.  This simple app creates a playlist of the most recent MPR audio stories, beginning with the hourly news.  Available on App Store.

Features

  • Starts automatically, just launch and listen

  • Remembers the stories you’ve heard and won’t automatically play them again

  • Jump to any point in a story by touching and dragging the playback bar

Sports and Recreation Classes

Ubersense Coach: Slow Motion Video Analysis by UberSense Inc (FREE)

Recommendation by Bryan Kehr, women’s soccer coach

Description

Record.  Analyze.  Improve.  Athletes and coaches in over 40 sports use Ubersense to improve through slow motion video analysis.  Available in App Store and Play Store.

Features

  • Download reference videos from the Ubersense community

  • Playback in multiple slow motion speeds and frame-by-frame

  • Use drawing tools to measure or highlight form

  • Compare two videos either stacked or side-by-side

  • AND MUCH MORE!

 

Organization

CalenMob — Sync with Google Calendar by Appxy (FREE)

Recommendation by Marissa King: “It’s easy to make group meeting times and even appointments with your professors since most HC faculty use Google calendar.”

Description

CalenMob is a native Google Calendar app with intuitive design.  It inherits the simple and clean look of google web calendar and makes it more accessible, responsive and reliable.  Available on App Store and Play Store.  Pro version is $6.99.

Features

  • CalenMob automatically synchronizes with your Google Calendar every time you open the app or after you make any changes to an event

  • CalenMob supports multiple gestures that makes it easier to manage your events

  • You can still create, edit, and delete events when you don’t have an internet connection.  CalenMob will cache your changes and sync back to your Google account next time you’re online

 

Toggle Timer by Toggl (FREE)

Recommendation by Marissa King: “For students, it might be helpful to track how much time they are actually spending on assignments since my guess it that what it feels like 2 hours for class is really much shorter.”

Description

Simple and convenient time tracking on the go  Log time your way and find out how much of it you spend on your daily tasks!  Available on App Store and Play Store.

Features

  • Conveniently track your time both online and offline

  • Quickly resume tasks you have timed previously

  • Free time tracking for teams of up to 5 members

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