Ah, the smell of erasers and chalk dust is in the air, which can mean only one thing: it’s back to school time in many parts of the world. While I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was happy my school days are behind me, I am a bit jealous that students heading back to school now have a plethora of great web and mobile applications to help them tackle the tasks involved with obtaining an education. I would have killed for some of the great applications available to students today — almost all of which are cooler (and more useful) than the Tetris app I used to play on my graphing calculator. In this list we’ve assembled ten of the must-have iPhone applications for students heading back to school. These apps will help you stay organized, take notes, and study better. What other iPhone applications are helpful to you Read More

By Rene Ritchie, Tuesday, Aug 18, 2009 | Bigwords [Free - iTunes link] is the iPhone and iPod touch front-end for the Bigwords.com website and it aims to help students (and their parents!) find the best deals on text books. How good is it at that task? Um… I don’t know. College and I got mutual restraining orders against each other over a decade ago, so I can’t go within 100 meters of this app without getting a major case of the wiggins. Bigwords tells us “at least 50%”, so if you’re headed back to school and you want to save a few (or a lot) of bucks on your way, give this a try and let us know how it works for you! Read More

As a parent of two adult children, with one just having left school and the other finishing a Master's degree, I know that buying textbooks at their staggeringly high prices adds insult to the injury of tuition, housing and living expenses. Over the last few years, the market has made historic my remembrances of going to the bookstore and paying whatever was marked on the shelf while often vainly trying to find used titles of popular books. Things have changed: Bigwords.com and its little friend the Bigwords.com app [iTunes Link] are welcome additions to the quest of buying books and still having enough left over for food. The Bigwords.com app tries to find the cheapest way to buy textbooks. Whether it's one book, or a long reading list, you will save money using this app. You can also make money by using it to sell unwanted books, but being a teacher, Read More