In most cases, phones have had a bad reputation for its “negative influence” on students. From Facebook to Instagram or text messaging, there are so many distractions you need to avoid when you have to focus. But what if you could turn your phones or tablets into a positive resource. Is this even possible? As long as you are with phones, you will still get distracted by messages from your friends or other notifications. However, as the technology is becoming more and more advanced, you can switch them off by turning on things like the “Do Not Disturb” feature! And just like that, the magic begins.

Note-taking

I am sure you take a lot of notes when studying (and if you’re not taking notes, you should — as it is proven to be the best way to memorize and understand concepts). Why do you take notes? The answer would be for you to rewrite what you read in words that you can better understand. You might want to take notes during lectures from teachers or reading your textbooks. However, the most important part comes afterward. After you take notes, you should be able to find it again easily — and efficiently. Otherwise, it doesn’t serve its key purpose. In this sense, searching plays a very important role in note-taking.

For easy search, some people use highlighting on their notes directly or using post-it markers with a message. Either way, you typically have to read it all to find your target topics. This was ok when this was the only way to search texts. But now? In the heart of the digital era?

Evernote 

There are several apps available (both free or with a purchase) for note-taking but Evernote is the most popular app. I’d like to introduce you to how “Evernote” can change your phones and tablets into study aid resource. (Please note that you could use any note-taking app as long as they offer similar features that I am going to describe below.)

 

Search in Evernote is like having your private Google search engine in the app.

Search

First off, I’d like to emphasize “searching” is the most important part of your note-taking process. Like I mentioned before, you could use color-coded highlighting for topics or use post-it markers to pages you took notes on but unless you are a super well-organized person, you usually end up with spending too much time on finding the notes you want to review again. What if there is a way to find your topic through online or off-line search just as if you would do it with Google? Wouldn’t it make your study experience much easier? With just a few key words and a click of a button — you can find exactly what you’re looking for.

Evernote works like a powerful database software. It stores data, and you can sort it out by your preferred keywords (topics) and most importantly, you can find anything via text search. When you create each note, you can create tags (just like Instagram). So you can search using keyword tags. If you don’t want to create tags, then what happens? No worries. “Evernote” searches whole texts and finds notes containing your search keywords.

 

Now you can take notes with your phones wherever you go.

 

Your memo from a mobile phone will be synced to all your devices including laptops and tablets.

Now when you need to review something again before your final, you can easily find it via Evernote search (provided that you take notes with Evernote). The benefit of using Evernote is that it syncs via cloud space (which will be given free to all users), so you can continue to take notes with tablets or laptops from where you left off from your mobile phones. Since most tablets offer a way to add handwriting, you can even add handwriting on top of your digital notes.

Good note-taking habits can not only save a lot of time for you but also help you study more efficiently. Now mobile phones can work in your favor as opposed to against you.

 

College Admission Consulting Group, ‘Admission Masters’
[LA, Irvine, Brea, San Marino, Seoul in Korea] 
https://www.theadmissionmasters.com