TrackClass: Nirvana of Student Organization?

There are lots of GTD websites and apps roaming around, a few might come out at the Demo ‘09 conference, but there’s nothing that I know, specifically aimed at students. TrackClass was built from the start with the needs of students in mind, and it shows. You can easily manage your classes, assignments, track exams dates, take notes and upload stuff you need to have around – formulas, projects, or any type of file.

As you’d expect from a web 2.0 start-up – the interface is clean and simple. Let’s look at it tab by tab and check out the functionality of each one.

Dashboard allows you to track:

• Overdue or upcoming assignments and exams.
• Lists your classes along with the current average for each.
• Recent notes or files that have been uploaded.

The Dashboard makes it extremely easy to stay on top of everything you have to do with a glance. Isn’t it better than your Sticky Notes?

• Next up we have the Assignments tab which only shows, you’ve guessed it, upcoming and completed assignments with grades attached.

• Exams tab let’s you set up detailed reminders, with both SMS and email support for notifications.
• The Notes tab contains a rudimentary word processor, more likely a text box. It is a big downside for those who are used to process their text to highlight ideas and important aspects. It has revisions which means you won’t lose any changes – if you’re not happy with the outcome – just revert to the previous edit.
• The text editor is Markdown enabled which means:

[…] a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). –a Daring Fireball project.

• Calendar tab, let’s you see – in a manner similar to Google Calendar – your assignments and exams. It is iCal format compatible so you won’t have any problems importing your current calendar.
• The best part yet, the Files tab let’s you upload/download any kind of file you might want to use, PDF, Word, JPG, you name it.

TrackClass is completely free and available for everyone to use. If you want to organize your student life TrackClass is the way to do it, it is for normal people. Of course, if you’re a geek, you could always use the Google Apps suite to achieve the same result, it has more features – but you won’t get cohesion and a one stop shop for all of your needs.

As always, I look forward to your comments – what do you use, and what do you think about TrackClass.