Online Tools and Resources for Students

When you’re creating original content, there are a lot of fantastic tools and services available to help you along the way. This page contains several hand-picked resources to consider, all of which have proven useful to students like you, and all of which can be used for free. Which ones should you choose? Try several and see which work best for the way you like to work, and check online reviews and examples shared by others.

Please note that you may need to sign up for an account to use these resources, in which case we recommend that you use your school email and (if necessary) physical address to preserve your family’s privacy.

Organization and Task Management

• Google Drive
  Google Drive allows you to create online folders that you can use to collect, store, search, and organize all of your materials.
• Todoist
  Todoist is another multi-platform task management app that many enjoy using. It’s minimalist, distraction-free design is definitely a highlight.
• Trello
  Trello is a fantastic service for organizing and prioritizing tasks. Their collaborative features also make working in teams much easier, and their free tier is more than adequate for standard use.
• Wunderlist
  Wunderlist is a simple, flexible, and powerful task management app that works on your computer, web, phone, and tablet.

Productivity

• Eggtimer
  A super-simple, web-based timer service. Great for chunking your work into discrete time blocks to avoid burnout, as well as other general countdown timer needs.
• RescueTime
  This application tracks the time you spend on applications and websites, then gives you reports and data based upon your activity. It’s a great way to see where you might be wasting time, and helps you focus on what’s important when you’re working on your computer.
• Zotero
  Zotero is a research tool for students that allows you to collect, search, and cite research for academic projects. It can make a lot of the “grunt” work for large and long-term projects much easier.

Presentation

• Glogster
  Create and share interactive multimedia posters. This is a great alternative to traditional poster-board presentations.
• Google Slides
  This service creates slide-based presentations similar to PowerPoint or Keynote, but they can easily be embedded within web projects, are accessible online (including in collaboration with others), and they can feature videos and other media elements.
• Prezi
  Prezi is an alternative to traditional slide-based presentations, featuring dynamic, motion-based transitions between presentation components. Prezi’s have become quite popular, and can become distracting without careful design, so please consider this choice with care.
• Thinglink
  Annotate images and videos with clickable areas that provide additional context, plus have the ability to embed these items into your web-based projects.
• Weebly
  For larger projects, Weebly allows you to create an entire website with easy drag-and-drop content blocks. They feature professional templates for various designs and applications, including HTML embedding from other web services. When evaluating Weebly and Wix, keep in mind that you get fewer templates to choose from with Weebly but greater design flexibility, and the options and features are deliberately more simple. Consider trying both services before you make your final choice.
• Wix
  Wix is another fantastic website creation tool for larger web projects. Its advanced features and extensive template offerings are unparalleled. When evaluating Wix and Weebly, keep in mind that you get more features and templates, but once you choose your template, you can’t change it. There’s also a steeper learning curve if you’d like to customize your site and take advantage of the advanced featured available. Consider trying both services before you make your final choice.

Writing

• Google Docs
  Google Docs is the word processing program connected to Google Drive. It allows you to create auto-saved text documents that you can easily share, export, and publish.
• Hemingway
  Use this online app to check and optimize your writing. In addition to spelling, it looks for ways to make your text clear, direct, and powerful. Although you can write in this interface, cutting-and-pasting from a more robust program (like Google Docs, which saves automatically) is recommended.
• Portent’s Title Maker
  Although it’s not perfect and the auto-generated titles can often be a little ridiculous, this tool can be helpful if you’re brainstorming a compelling title (particularly for blog posts and other quick writing tasks).

Image Creation

Sometimes the most useful and compelling images are the ones you make yourself, specifically for your project. Original images stand out because they’re unique, and as the creator, you also don’t need to worry about providing proper attribution.

• Canva
  Canva is one of our favorite tools for generating beautiful original graphics, including headlines, covers, and infographics. To use this service for free, upload your own images or use the (more limited) set of Canva graphics provided without cost.
• Pablo by Buffer
  A super simple, super quick image creation tool optimized for social media. When you need a compelling graphic in a flash, try this tool. If you need something more flexible, however, consider other resources.
• Stencil
  Stencil is similar to Canva, but optimized for speed. Quickly create graphics from a more limited (but still high-quality) set of templates. The free plan includes 10 completed graphics per month.

Infographics

• BeFunky
  One of many graphic tools available on the BeFunky service, they feature an easy-to-use interface with lots of great templates.
• Canva
  Yes, Canva does infographics, too. Please see more about this service above.
• Easel.ly
  Choose from a wide variety of infographic styles, then customize to create your own.
• Infogram
  Create gorgeous, dynamic charts and infographics, and then share or embed them within your own work.
• Piktochart
  This free online visualization tool is perfect for infographics, but also has great tools for creating presentations, reports, flyers, and posters.
• Visme
  Yet another great multi-use online graphic design tool that many students find to be the perfect solution for creating infographics.

Webcomics

• Make Beliefs Comix
  It’s quick and easy to get started making comics with this site, no login required.
• Pixton
  This site features lots of options and a distinct graphic style, but it does require an account signup to begin.
• Strip Generator
  Strip Generator is another fast and easy option, just be sure that Flash is enabled within your browser.
• Witty Comics!
  Dirt-simple, three-panel comic generator. Take screenshots of each 3-panel sequence to build your comic.
• Write Comics
  The backgrounds, props, and characters have a very classic comic feel, and the interface is extremely easy to use, although somewhat limited in capability.

Image Licensing

Unless it’s explicitly stated otherwise, all images on the web are considered to be owned and controlled by the original creator. In rare instances, you can even get into legal trouble if you use images without getting permission. Luckily, there are many creators who generously give their work to the world for free. The terms under which creators choose how their work can be used are called licenses, and various licenses give you differing options for the use of the work.

Creative Commons is an organization that provides a simple, easy-to-understand set of rules that allow sharing of work while preserving the rights of creators to retain ownership of it. Creative Commons licenses include the following components:

• CC0 puts the work into the public domain, without any restrictions (but you should still give credit to the creator if you can)

• Attribution requires you to give credit to the creator

• ShareAlike requires you to keep the same license for any derivative works

• NoDerivs requires you to keep the work complete and in its original form

• NonCommercial prevents you from using the work for commercial purposes

Image Search

It can be difficult to find images that are legal to use in your own projects, and even harder to find the original creator so that you can provide proper attribution. Resist the temptation to take the first thing you find off of a site like Google Images or Bing Image Search, and see just how impressive this range of free-to-use image resources can be; you’ll often find images that rival pay sites.

Please note that many of these sites also feature “sponsored” images in their results. These choices require payment, and are often “watermarked” with the company name across the image. Be sure you’re using free, unwatermarked images!

• Can We Image
  This is a custom-built search engine to find media released into the Wikimedia Commons, making it much easier to access media and determine available licensing.

• Compfight (choose “Creative Commons” license)
  A simple interface to locate images on photo sharing site Flickr using tags and descriptions.

• Creative Commons Search
  Search for media directly on the Creative Commons site and have the option of including not only images, but also video and music.

• Everystockphoto
  This site offers millions of free images for use in your work, and as a result the quality can be mixed, but there are often a wide variety of choices.

• Gratisography
  Ryan McGuire offers a wonderful array of striking and whimsical photographs from his collection, all with a CC0 license.

• Imagefinder
  Another image search interface, this one specifically indexing Creative Commons and public domain works.

• The New York Public Library Digital Collections
  Be sure to check the box to search only public domain materials. This massive collection of images and other media from the NYPL is a treasure trove of historical artifacts spanning centuries.

• PhotoPin
  PhotoPin is a search engine that finds images on Flickr listed with a Creative Commons license (which allows for noncommercial use) and allows you to download them in various sizes. It also includes cut-and-paste code that you can use to give proper attribution to the image creator.

• Pixabay
  Huge searchable database of Creative Commons CC0 (Public Domain) images, including illustrations, vector graphics, and videos. Quality can vary, as a result, however there are a lot of top-notch contributions that aren’t difficult to unearth.

• Stockvault
  Stockvault offers another collection of free-to-use images, including illustrations.

• Superfamous
  Professional photographer Folkert Gorter provides the world with incredible and highly imaginative images under an Attribution Creative Commons license.

• Unsplash
  Now that one of the most beautiful free photo repositories has a crowdsourced search interface, it’s one of the primary go-to resources for free images.

• Wikimedia Commons
  Features images and media used in Wikipedia, all of which are free for use in your projects. Consider using their Featured Pictures, Quality Images, and Valued Images collections to wade through the considerable number of lower-quality images. See Can We Image above for an easier search interface.

Audio

• Free Music Archive
  A large selection of Creative-Commons licensed music — just be sure to check the specifics of each license to determine your options.
• Freesound
  This is a fantastic resource for Creative Commons licensed sound effects and other non-musical audio.
• MobyGratis
  Free music for non-commercial projects from electronic music pioneer and Grammy-award winner Moby.
• OLPC Free Sound Samples
  An incredible volume of downloadable free sounds and music originally used in the One Laptop Per Child project.
• Open Music Archive
  Collaborative project to collect and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings.
• Soundcloud Sharable Search
  Search Soundcloud’s extensive library of sounds and music, then use and download results with appropriate licenses (be sure to check) in your own work.
• YouTube Audio Library
  YouTube’s large selection of free music can be sorted by things genre and mood, making it perfect for a lot more than just video projects.

Video

• Archive.org Moving Image Archive
  This archive contains hundreds of public-domain video clips for download and modification in your own projects.
• National Park Service
  Make sure there’s no copyright symbol to stay within the public domain. Thousands of videos featuring the United States’ National Parks. Great for B-Roll footage in the right context.