Best Web Sites for Students Who Want to be Productive

CNET recently published a list of best web sites for students that included social networking, sports, gaming, music, and gambling sites. Yes, that's correct. Apparently, the best sites for students are sites that have nothing to do with college and everything to do with entertainment.

If you're interested in actually being productive at school this year, consider familiarizing yourself with some of the sites listed below. The first eleven sites listed below are free, so why wouldn't you check them out?

Writely: Writely is a web based word processor that allows you to work on your papers from any computer. For example, you could work on a document in your room, then pull up the document through a web browser at the computer lab to print it. You could also share your paper with a friend at your school or anywhere else in the world to get some help with drafts. Sign-ups are currently closed, but you can get one through a friend who's registered.
SparkNotes: SparkNotes provides tutorials (similar to Cliff Notes) on pretty much any common topic you could think of. Being web based, they can do things that text books only dream about, such as linking to related material and undefined words. If your text book makes no sense, and the TA teaching your 100-level course can't get a point across give SparkNotes a try.
WikiPedia: Pretty much any subject you're studying has been touched on by a WikiPedia contributor. Like SparkNotes, WikiPedia entries link to related information and sources, so you can find out more information about subjects that interest you and different perspectives on the same topic.
Your Professor's Blogs: Try Googling your professors names to find out if they have blogs. If so, consider subscribing to them using a feed reader like Bloglines.
Bloglines: Bloglines is a web based application that lets you aggregate content from your favorite web sites into one interface. For example, you could track news from your hometown newspaper, blogs related to issues that interest you, entertainment such as AutoBlog, TheSuperficial,or BoingBoing, and saved searches from Craigslist for dorm furniture or bikes.
Google Calendar: You have a lot of classes, tests, and parties to keep track of. Use a calendar so you can make the most of your time.
Dummies eTips: If you've spent most of your online life on AIM and MySpace, you may be missing some essential Office skills that will make your life easier in college and at your future job. The authors of the Dummies series of computer books offer daily tips by email on everything ranging from Microsoft Word to
Gmail: Chances are pretty good that you'll find yourself in a long and heated email exchange with a large group of friends trying to pick the ultimate location for your spring break trip. The nice thing about Gmail is that entire thread of emails will be bundled together into one conversation, so that important email from your professor won't get pushed back two pages in your inbox. And it integrates well with Google Calendar.
Fool.com Credit Center: Graduating from college with a high credit score and no credit card debt may turn out to be as valuable as your degree. Understand how your credit score is determined and how important it is to avoid screwing it up by reading the Credit Center articles at Fool.com.
Meebo: Chances are pretty good that some of your friends use different IM programs than you do. Some may be on AIM, others Yahoo, and yet others MSN or Gtalk. Meebo solves this problem by aggregating chat from all four major chat platforms into one web based chat client. Rather than running all of those chat clients at once, just sign up with Meebo, add in all of your chat IDs and you're set. Now you can chat from any computer with web access without worry about installing chat software.

Bonus Suggestions

A real live college student named Carlie from the University of Minnesota who waited on my table at a local restaurant last night recommended the following two sites to me:

11. Dictionary.com / Thesarus.com: She says they help her with her writing and expand her vocabulary.

12. Ebay: Sure, it's a great place to buy stuff for cheap, but what about this: Carlie says it's a great place to liquidate concert tickets from friends who back out of shows. That's a great way to recoup some cash, or come out ahead in scalping situations.

A few honorable mentions: craigslist.com, your school's knowledge base, Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

What would you add to this list?

Thanks Todd. Personally, I've found little value in word processor backgrounds since 1997, but there certainly could be a market for that.

Thanks, Aaron. I'm not sure why a school would block a site like Meebo, since it likely uses very little bandwidth, but anything's possible.

A new alternative to Sparknotes is Litsum.com, which has twice as many literature summaries.

does anyone kno of a im site that schools wont't block. ive tried meebo.com and koolim.com but they've blocked them both and i dont kno of any other sites. thanks

Comments

1. Posted by: Todd on August 8, 2006 9:44 PM:

Great list, Ed--

I would add gOFFICE (www.goffice.com), which also offers a web word processor, but emphasizes a slightly different direction in the web application space: superior PDF output. Go to the site, type your document, select from the custom backgrounds, and create your document. Simple, available anywhere, and open to everyone.

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