When I was at university, there simply were no useful Web tools (except email). We did things the hard way; we backed up work on wholly unreliable CDs, we walked to libraries and thumbed through reams of dust coated books to do our research, and we wrote in stone.  Ok, we didn’t do the stone bit, but most tasks were fairly laborious. Not any longer.

The advance of the Web has meant that there are now various free excellent Web applications that can help you get organised, easily maintain back-ups, collaborate with friends, and conduct research. We’ve put together a list of 8 of the best free Web tools available for students.

Bookmarking

Delicious
www.delicious.com

Delicious is a social bookmarking Website that allows you to easily store, and share, all your bookmarks online. I’m a regular user of Delicious and one of the great benefits is that I can access my bookmarks from any computer. It’s also worth assigning tags to each saved page (e.g. “French Literature Essay”), as  you can then easily retrieve all the relevant saved pages by typing “French Literature Essay” in the tags search box.

Information

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org

Wikipedia is a great source of information. It’s not strictly a Web tool and it’s already well-known, but it’s worth adding to the list for those who are not aware of its usefulness as a research resource. Wikipedia now contains over 13 million articles on just about every topic you can imagine. However, as it’s a collaborative tool (i.e. it can be edited by anybody), it’s a good place to start, but don’t entirely rely on it.

Yahoo! Answers
http://answer.yahoo.com

Yahoo! Answers is another user generated information resource like Wikipedia, with the difference being that users submit questions that are answered by other users. I’ve used it on a number of occasions to both submit questions and to also search the answers to research certain topics. Apparently, it has become the second most popular Internet reference site after Wikipedia

Collaboration

Google Docs
http://docs.google.com

Google Docs is a free Web-based word processor and spreadsheets application, and is an excellent tool for group exercises, or work where any form of collaboration is required. I’ve used it in a work context to simultaneously edit a document with a partner, and socially to tally up votes for a choice of destination for a group holiday. You can also edit your documents from anywhere.

Meebo
www.meebo.com

Do you use an instant messenger client (e.g. MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Facebook, etc)? Then, check this out: Meebo is a Website that lets you access and chat with any or all of your instant messaging buddies from anywhere in the world. Cool, right? It gets better. Meebo has the ability to cut across service boundaries, which means that you can talk to your friends even if they use a different instant messaging service. So, get collaborating on those projects!

Organisation

EverNote
www.evernote.com

There‘s growing noise about a powerful free Web tool called EverNote, which essentially is an online scrap book, and it sounds awesome. The Website states that you can use the service to “…save your ideas, things you see, and things you like”. It seems to have an abundance of cool features; you can save text, audio, and images (e.g. screenshots, entire Web pages, or photos taken with your camera phone), and everything, including the images, is searchable. In addition to adding notes via the Web and mobiles, you can also email, or even twitter, your findings to the application.

Remember The Milk
www.rememberthemilk.com

If you’re a list-maker (I am!) then check out Remember The Milk (RTM). RTM is a free popular Web service that will help you manage your to-do lists. You can manage your tasks very easily, and receive reminders via email, SMS, and instant messenger. The service lets you go list crazy and you can share them with your friends. Additionally, you can use the service with various online calendars (e.g. Google calendar) and you can also download the tool to the iPhone for free.

Storage

Dropbox
www.getdropbox.com

Dropbox is a service that let’s you very easily store, back-up, and share files online. The service is simply amazing. When I was at uni, we used to back-up files on a thousand different discs, which were all prone to damage and loss. When you download Dropbox, a special folder is created in your documents. Then, whenever you save a file to that folder, it is instantly backed-up online and on any other computer that you have installed Dropbox! The sync takes mere seconds and you can watch it synchronising via a small icon that is added to the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. It also keeps revised versions of your files (nifty if you lose or damage a file) and you can also share files with friends and family by emailing them a link.

Are you using an application that you think will be useful to other students? Let us know about it in the comments below!