Fall is approaching, and the return to a more regular office schedule looms for many people – and with it, wait times for transportation, meetings, and appointments. Gaming, reading, social media, or just zoning out are common ways to pass these times, but if you want more mental stimulation, why not boost your brain with brief lessons on topics that interest you? Here’s a guide to finding Android and iOS apps that turn your smartphone into a traveling pocket tutor.
Learn a language
Academic courses on the Web And music lessons have exploded in recent years, especially as remote learning has become an integral part of pandemic life. Although Apple and Google have their own free translation appssome people also found online language courses useful. No one wants to hear you practicing your French pronunciation on a commuter train, but several language teaching apps offer free or inexpensive vocabulary and grammar tutorials that you can follow quietly or with headphones.
Hubbub, Duolingo, Memrise And Rosetta stone are among those that offer short courses for a wide choice of languages. Each app requires a user account that you must create for the lessons in order to track your progress. Both Duolingo and Memrise offer free plans as well as paid options and tend to make learning more fun with videos and touchscreen exercises; note that Duolingo recently suffered user data loss. Babbel and Rosetta Stone focus more on conversational skills and require you to subscribe to further your education; Prices vary, but expect to pay less than $100 per year for full access.
Explore global culture
If you want to pretend you’re not stuck in a bus seat for 45 minutes each way, you can visit the world’s great museums virtually using apps like Bloomberg connects and the Google Arts and Culture app for Android And iOS. Both apps are free.
Bloomberg Connects offers more than 200 guides to date, with videos and highlights from the collections of art museums around the world and other cultural sites. These portable museum tours mix video, text and images and can be downloaded when you don’t have internet access.
Google Arts & Culture offers content from more than 3,000 cultural institutions, monuments, and sites around the world. Travel guides to major cities around the world, as well as scientific and historical exhibitions and cultural games are also included.
Even though TED Talks have become something of a pop culture aside (“Thanks for listening to my TED Talk”), thousands of free talks on technology, science, design, and cultural topics are available for free on the official website. TED app for Android And iOS. Lectures can be downloaded for offline viewing when you create a free user account.
Study science
You can also learn the basics of computer coding on your mobile device. Although Google recently abandoned Its free Grasshopper app to teach the basics, you can find many tutorials and guides to learn the basics of coding on your phone.
The basic plan proposed by Learn solo offers short, free coding courses in several computer languages; The Pro plan includes interactive demos and other features for $70, billed annually.
The non-profit association Khan Academy offers a selection of courses for adults in computer programming, animation and other topics. The company has mobile app And YouTube videosbut some content is displayed in a mobile browser.
NASA has a comprehensive multimedia application that showcases its space missions, and the agency has produced several other free educational mobile applications and games devoted to aeronautics, the solar system and much more. Links to software can be found with a search in the App Store or on the NASA website.
Get Mental Training
If you want to take a break from your learning to show how well you Already be aware that there is no shortage of mobile quiz apps in the App Store, including Knowledge Trainer, which tests you with 6,000 questions on a range of topics. The premium version without ads costs $6 per year.
For additional mental stimulation, “brain training” apps like Raise Or Culminate which claim to develop cognitive skills through stimulating games and exercises provide another place to focus your attention. A free tier is available, and an annual subscription to either app costs less than $40.
Some days may be better than others for microlearning, but on days when there is a transit or meeting delay, you can at least benefit from a little more study time.
