As another school year begins, students watching assignments pile up can turn to the myHomework iPhone app for help.
This free app is easy to use and designed to look like a notebook, with sticky notes differentiating the pages. When you first sign on, you enter your class schedule with details like course number, professor and schedule. Homework assignments, tests or projects can be entered for each corresponding class. The app also gives you the option of emailing any assignments or course information to a classmate.
Assignments can be tracked in a day or calendar view. My problem with the calendar view is that it doesn’t allow you to look at all your deadlines at once. Instead, you have to click on a particular day to see what is due.
To help with prioritization, all assignments are color-coded based on immediacy. Red lettering means the assignment is late, orange means it’s due the following day and blue marks all upcoming assignments. The app notifies you of upcoming assignments by showing the number of assignments due on the application icon, but it would be even better if you could set the app up to notify you of pressing assignments when you turn on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Though the app is convenient for students with a lot to juggle, it is not free of glitches. It occasionally crashed when I tried to enter more information and did not always respond to my touch when I tried to add another homework assignment.
