Back to School Tech Tips You Don't Know

School’s out for summer, for kids, teenagers, young adults, mature students, teachers and lecturers across the globe. Except… it’s nearly time to get back to class. Has everyone got their pencils sharpened, packed lunches planned, uniform washed and ironed? We didn’t think so. It’s fine: tech can help.

Over the next month, Tech Advisor will be sharing back-to-school tech tips for students and teachers of grade school, middle school, high school, primary school, secondary school, college, university and any other educational institute. We’ll also be highlighting student deals and discounts and recommendations on the digital devices they need for study, or for kitting out their dorm rooms, and suggesting software and apps that might help them to learn, reflect and even wind down so they stay fresh and ready to learn throughout the term.

You might also like to check out the best back-to-school tech tips from our sister sites Macworld and PCWorld. Between our family of editors we have decades of experience in school, bringing up children, and yes, tech, so you can trust that we’ll offer only the best recommendations for your back-to-school kit list.

Read on to learn more about:

• The apps and services that can target anxiety and stress, keeping your mind healthy and primed for learning
• The tech that can help you sleep better, keeping you refreshed throughout the school term
• The apps that can super-charge your educational experience
• Tech that can find school bags left on buses, and ease your concerns over younger kids who are out of your sight for the first time
• Devices that might encourage college and university students to live on more than beans on toast, without blowing their budget
• Gadgets that’ll keep their student lodgings clean, and feeling more like a home from home
• How students can save money on, well, everything (including tech) with the best deals and student discounts in the back to school sales
• Tech that might transform future schooling – and cause new problems for teachers in the process

Back-to-school tech that can teach you something new

When you think of back-to-school tech, you most likely think of tablets, laptops (and specifically laptops best for students) and Chromebooks, digital devices on which you can research, write and submit coursework, and laptop bags into which you can stuff these devices alongside your books.

You might think about software, such as Microsoft’s Office suite – Word for essays, OneDrive for storing and accessing homework in the cloud, and Teams for virtual learning and collaboration – or maybe you’re using Google Classroom.

Many schools also now have apps that keep you updated on class schedules, homework, detentions and upcoming trips that you can download to your phone – if you’re allowed one in class, of course.

These things are all important, sure. We’ll be reporting on all the best student deals and discounts on back-to-school tech, and you can read up on our coverage of the best tablets, laptops and Chromebooks. But we’re far more interested in the tech you might have overlooked, or for which there are possibilities you hadn’t considered.

Let’s consider just a few examples here, and we’ll be going into more detail in our wider back-to-school coverage:

Greater mental health awareness for powered-up learning

Adults who think school kids have it easy have merely forgotten their youth; in fact, anxiety and stress are very real problems for students of all ages, whether they are struggling with getting into a routine, finding it difficult to manage their workload, need help dealing with high expectations placed upon them, coping with bullying or general teenage angst… the list goes on.

While we need to be mindful of screen time, tech can also help you switch off and give your mind a break, which is necessary if you want it to perform at its best and soak up all that valuable knowledge you’re hitting it with. For some, switching off might come through gaming; for others it might come from streaming music or movies (and there are loads of streaming deals to be snapped up by students, some of which will offer a wider range of content when paired with a VPN, so also check out the Best VPN deals for students); for still others it might come through playing your own music. Whatever your vibe, you can guarantee tech can help in some shape or form.

Part of keeping a healthy mind is ensuring you get a good night’s sleep – we spoke to a sleep expert to find out how a smartwatch can help you achieve this. Headphones like the Kokoon Nightbuds, smart rings like the Oura Ring and light alarms can help you track and manage your sleep, ultimately helping you to sleep better, wake more gently, and feel more refreshed. We find listening to audiobooks can help us to nod off, especially when used with a smart speaker in the bedroom, and they’re great for learning, too (check out Audible to find some great audiobooks).

Don’t even get us started on mobile apps: there are so many that can help you deal with anxiety and stress, from Aura to Calm, Breathwrk and Headspace.

Back-to-school apps and online learning resources

…And there are even more educational apps. Want to encourage younger kids to read? Try Epic: Kids’ Books & Reading, and track their reading goals with Bookly. Didn’t do the reading assignment? Try StoryShots. Having trouble with maths or science? Try Khan Academy or Photomath. Need a note-taking or to-do list app? Try Evernote. Want to check your grammar before submitting coursework? Try Grammarly. Want to take the hard work out of revision and swap reading for listening? Try Peech. Want to brush up on your languages? Try Duolingo or Babbel. Want to learn something completely new? Try Udemy. Want to test your knowledge? Try Quizlet. There are apps for anything and everything, even down to figuring out what to put in their packed lunch (try LaLa Lunchbox – iPhone only; Android kids go hungry).

Not so long ago we would use physical dictation machines to quickly get down notes and ideas in lectures. These days, Windows, Android and iOS all have dictation functionality built-in – but, if you’re looking for a more advanced solution, check out Otter.

These are just a handful of hundreds of app-based learning resources that are at your fingertips, so go find them. You’ll find even more online learning services in our separate guide.

Tech can help worried parents, too

For parents who have kids who are just starting school, or perhaps leaving home for university or college, there can be a huge sense of worry about letting them out of your sight.

Many parents will decide to purchase their child their first smartphone so they can easily get in touch with them, or they can use a tracking app to keep tabs on them. But while there are some great basic phones and cheap kid-friendly prepaid plans out there that won’t break the bank, you don’t want to be giving them a phone until they are ready for it.

A smartwatch is another option, which will also enable tracking. Fitbit has a range of smartwatches for kids, including the brand-new Fitbit Ace LTE. But some schools are strict on their policies around children using phones and smartwatches in class.

Another – and even cheaper option – is a Bluetooth tracker, such as the Tile Mate. Hook it on to their school bag and you’ll always know where they are. Or, at the very least, you’ll know where their bag is when they leave it on the school bus. (Books are expensive, you know.)

For older kids who are mature enough that you don’t need to be keeping tabs on them at all times, the worry can be more that they are eating properly and looking after themselves while away from home. And when we say eating properly, we mean something more substantial than beans on toast.

Consider an air fryer: it’ll save them money when every penny counts, and it’s small enough to fit snugly in the corner of their lodgings (just check it’s allowed first). Our Group Home Tech Editor, Emma, managed to feed herself exclusively using an air fryer for a month, and she’s very much still alive.

If you’re worried about them cleaning up after themselves, how about a robot vac? They can set up a cleaning schedule and forget about it.

Students get the best discounts (on tech, and everything else)

Being a student isn’t cheap, even if you don’t have to pay for your schooling, and there’s not a whole load of time to be working on the side if you want to come out with the best possible grades. Loads of companies offer student discounts, so it’s always worth looking into whether you can save money as a student before you buy, well, anything.

If you’re specifically after tech, all the big vendors offer student discounts, from Apple and Microsoft, to Dell and HP, Adobe, Samsung and Google. Students could even get access to Office 365 for free. Even Amazon Prime and YouTube offer student discounts.

UniDays is an amazing resource for all types of student discounts, and is not limited to tech. StudentBeans is also worth a look.

Future schooling could be transformed with AI

We thought Amazon Alexa-powered Echo speakers, Google Assistant-powered Nest devices and the Apple Siri-powered HomePod would transform education, returning answers to students’ homework problems at a simple spoken command. And there were those who feared that users of these digital assistants might even lose their ability to retain information over time. Shocking.

But AI (Artificial Intelligence) has gone much further since the advent of smart voice assistants, and could now transform schooling by opening up possibilities such as personalized tuition, study programs and lesson plans, and it has the potential to be a huge help in research and revision.

AI could also be misused, of course, with the potential to spread false information, and to encourage plagiarism and cheating.

If you’re even considering using AI to write your dissertation, just remember that if it’s not obvious to the trained eye then there are AI tools out there (such as Surfer) that can be used to detect AI-generated content. Trust us, the teachers are going to be hot on this. Don’t even try it.

More back-to-school tech tips

We’ve barely scratched the surface here in terms of how tech can be used in ways you might not have considered to assist with education. For more tech tips, be sure to check out our Back to School hub.