Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

Reading online 59 
in a folder, perhaps with a diferent coloured folder for each sub-
ject you study. With online reading material, that is difcult. How-
ever, there are some ways in which you can achieve this. In the 
jargon of the online world, you need to “curate” your “content”. 
Various software programs can help you achieve this. Personally, 
I prefer a program called Evernote. All of the reading that I have 
completed in the research for this book, for example, is curated 
into a single “notebook” on Evernote called “Studying Online”. 
I have tagged each of the items with relevant keywords and chapter 
numbers. Tat means I can fnd everything I need when I am writ-
ing specifc elements of this book. You could save all the reading 
together for specifc subjects and tag them for assignments, for 
example. 
With Evernote, you can add PDFs, links to web pages, audio notes 
and handwritten items, and type your own material. You can fnd 
out more about notetaking with Evernote in Chapter 4. In terms 
of online reading, though, programs like Evernote allow you to 
organise all your reading materials in much the same way as you 
would do with paper documents within folders. Alternatives to 
Evernote include programs such as Microsoft OneNote and No-
tion. Both of these are popular with students. Indeed, Microsoft 
OneNote is included with the Microsoft 365 suite of ofce soft-
ware which is given to many students. Plus, Microsoft OneNote 
includes a “Class Notebook” feature that allows lecturers to set up 
a series of notebooks to accompany lectures. As a result, you may 
fnd this embedded within many online study programs. However, 
all of these programs work in much the same way allowing you to 
collect your reading materials together. 
Another way you might like to curate your reading materials is to 
use software that is focused upon the online reading you will do. 
Tere are various browser add-ons or extensions that can curate 
all the online reading into collections to save you from having to 
bookmark everything. Popular programs that can achieve this are 
Pocket and Flipboard, which can both help you store all the online 
reading materials you access in one place. 

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