Learning how to organize your time and work independently is one of the consistent challenges for high school students. They have so much to track between classes, extracurriculars, family schedules, and hopefully a social life! Teen Correspondent XueFei Liu walked us through her physical and digital planners last month, but maybe you aren’t the kind to sit down every week to stay organized. You might be the kind of person who needs someone else to make it all work for you?

That’s where the crack team at edPal want to help! International School of Beijing (ISB) student and edPal  COO Claire Shi explains more:

“[edPal is] a product that aims to address the numerous organizational problems students face.  Especially during the pandemic, which has pushed students across the world into virtual learning, there is a critical need for a convenient, low cost, and intuitive solution to disorganization.

edPAL helps provides this solution through its innovative platform that will help students achieve higher productivity, organization, and efficiency. The features of edPAL include:

• An e-binder organized and personalized to individual students’ needs and preferences.
• An agenda with a built-in time-boxing function to maximize productivity.
• A simple and easy user experience, as well as compatibility with other platforms such as Google Drive.
• Centralization of school material (from PowerSchool, Canvas, OneDrive, OneNote, emails, etc.) to the student’s liking.

We have earned over $3,000 in seed funding, and are currently developing the learning software.  We plan to release edPAL in late February.  For more information, please visit www.edpal.net.”

Staying organized wasn’t nearly as complicated as when I was a student, but looking at everything that edPal offers, I can see why these students (besides Shi, there is also Rohit Gunda, CFO, Connecticut; Elaine Shi, CMO, Texas; Anish Devineni, CTO, Texas; and Veer Dosi, India) put so much effort into their new business. Searching for class materials across many platforms must take a lot of time, and edPlan looks like it can synchronize all those available options near your calendar. It’s helpful to know that the creators didn’t have to guess at your struggles, because they’re teens themselves, and understand the many challenges you face.

Add to that their useful blog, with tips on organization and the concepts their platform is built upon, like timebanking, and the entrepreneurs behind edPlan aren’t just offering a product, but going further to be sure their potential customers know how to use it. They even offer badges and fun incentives for really digging into the materials.

If you’re a student, they’re launching any day now and you can sign up on their Downloads page. There’s a free plan and an affordable Premium plan, plus a whole community of like-minded international students to guide you along your organizational journey. For anyone who struggles with the many platforms involved with e-learning, or school in general, this looks like an excellent product.

KEEP READING: Are School Breaks Negotiable? Take the Poll

Images: EdPal

Teenagers have a lot of stress, and in our 2021-2022 School Choice Guide, due out mid February, you’ll hear a lot more from teen correspondent XueFei Liu on how to manage it. One specific suggestion she gives is to organize all of your deadlines into a planner so you can then plan out exactly how to manage each task and be successful in your school assignments. As a little treat, she created these short walkthroughs of how she uses both a physical and a digital planner to stay organized and mostly stress-free!

Physical Planner

Virtual Planner

How do you organize your schoolwork? Let us know in the comments!

KEEP READING: I Tried All These 2021 Planners So You Don’t Have To

Photos: XueFei Liu

The school year is starting and supplies need to be found, so we’ve compiled a nice list of goodies and where to find them online. I stumbled across some fun things, even for adults who don’t attend school anymore. Beijing makes it hard for us to shop all our goods at a store like Target. So we often need to resort to online shopping instead.

Markers that truly wash out of anything, I have tried and tested them (or rather my toddler has) and they are really washable. I stumbled upon a Crayola store at baopals.com and I cant wait to get my kid some coloring goodies. Find them here

IKEA has a great range of back to school stuff, desks and chairs galore. Take a trip to IKEA with your teens on a hot Beijing morning and enjoy some meatballs while you are there. Door tags are great way of showing your parents what you are up to without speaking to them. Find them here

The best way of storing all the arts and crafts materials for the new school year; we are loving it in our household. Its easy to pack stuff away and easy to roll up wherever you want to do some arts and crafts. Find it here.

Awesome backpacks in different colors and sizes. A great way of trekking around town with all your new school stuff and your new fancy lunchbox. Find them here.

Incredible cute USB sticks in the form of a miniature ice cream bars. How can you ever lose something that looks like an ice lolly? Find it here.

A happy planner for moms and teens alike. This is one of my favorite products so far. I am aware that we live in a digital age, but nothing beats writing down your plans and to-do lists in a beautiful book. Find it here.

An extraordinary lunch box. Who doesn’t need a lunchbox that looks like a hamburger. Fill it up with healthy delights for your youngsters and trick them into eating a green diet instead of ordering Sherpas. Find it here.

Super cute portable chargers so your kid never runs out of juice. No reason to be disconnected anymore. These ultra flat devices can charge up your phone in no time. Find it here.

Photos: www.baopals.com www.ikea.com www.taobao.com chicagounheard.org