…and just like that, 2023 is almost over! But what a year it’s been! Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder celebrated its first birthday (there was no cake), we had snowfall warnings in April that were no joke, and, well I’m sure you all can fill in another memory of 2023.

As we move into the Holiday season, we thought we’d “wrap” things up by outlining the different types of supports we’ve identified, and the tech resources highlighted for those supports. Links to previous blog posts are included in each section, and you may even find a new resource (or 2)!

Reading

So far on the blog we’ve looked at 2 main supports for Reading – Immersive Reader (a part of Microsoft Office) and Kurzweil 3000 (text-to-speech software). While this may not seem like a lot of options, both of these supports are amazing resources and are free to use for College students (and staff).

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Immersive Reader – A free set of tools developed by Microsoft built into the latest versions of Word, OneNote, Outlook, Teams, and Edge (among other applications).
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: PDF Files in Edge – How to use Edge to read and take notes on PDFs.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Kurzweil 3000 – The main feature of Kurzweil 3000 is text-to-speech, but Kurzweil has so many other features that also help with comprehension, writing and studying.

…and if you’re the type that wants to compare and contrast the two supports to one another, we’ve got you covered!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Reading Week – Reading Supports – A special post highlighting some common reading difficulties, and the features that Kurzweil 3000 and Immersive Reader have to support these experiences.

Bonus Support – LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Reading

Notetaking

Now when we say “notetaking” we don’t just mean during an in-person live lecture, and these notetaking supports have your back for both in-person, online, and notetaking while reading!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: OneNote – A digital 3-ring binder allowing you to take notes, edit your notes, use Immersive Reader to listen to your notes, add in images and visual content, and more, across all of your courses, throughout your program.
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Top 8 Tips for OneNote – quick tips in OneNote to help you convert text into a bullet or numbered list, create a table, move rows of information up or down in a table, link information from one page to another, and create shortcuts.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: PDF Files in Edge (rrc.ca) – How to use Edge to read and take notes on PDFs.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation – Yes, we sure did mean to include voice dictation in the section on notetaking…why?… Well, voice dictation may help you write your notes (outside of class) or rewrite notes much faster than handwriting or typing! Plus, the more ways you interact with the same information, the stronger connections you’ll make in your mind to recall that information.

Writing Supports

Writing a paper is made up of many steps, and with each step, there is a technology resource available to support you!

Research

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Collections in Edge – A more in-depth and organized way of saving webpages that you frequent often, or want to save to revisit at a later date.

Organize your thoughts

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil 3000 – help you to organize your thoughts, group ideas together, develop a flow to your paper, or even be repurposed to help you develop a timeline or a plan to help keep you on track.

Write

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation – Did you know that the majority of people can speak up to three times faster than they can write? Try using voice dictation and see if it saves you time when completing written work!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers + Voice Dictation  – Combine Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil along with Voice Dictation in Word as a recipe for success to help you organize and write down your thoughts!

Refine/edit

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Microsoft’s Editor – An artificial intelligence (AI) powered service that not only reviews your work for you to check for spelling and grammar, but also checks for refinements such as clarity, conciseness, formality, and vocabulary (among others).
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation Commands for Editing and Formatting in Office 365 – Specific words or phrases that you can say, that Office applications understand as an action to carry out, rather than text to type. Take voice dictation one step further with voice commands!

References

• Tech Tips Blog Post: RefWorks – Simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an easy-to-use-tool for citation, bibliography, and reference management.

Still looking for more help with Academic Writing and Citation? Check out the supports our friends over at the Academic Success Centre have!

• Webpage: RRC Polytech Academic Success Centre, Academic Writing
• Webpage: RRC Polytech, Academic Success Centre, Writing Centre
• LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Fundamentals of Academic Writing
• LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Research Papers

Organization

Thought organization, time organization, task organization… *phew* Let’s just look at the supports we’ve highlighted!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil 3000 – help you to organize your thoughts, group ideas together, develop a flow to your paper, or even be repurposed to help you develop a timeline or a plan to help keep you on track.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Brightspace Pulse – With the Brightspace Pulse app is that you are able to visually see, across all of your courses, important dates for the week (month, etc…).
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Collections in Edge – A more in-depth and organized way of saving webpages that you frequent often, or want to save to revisit at a later date.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Microsoft To Do – Helps you to conveniently organize your tasks in one place, and access that to-do list from multiple device.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Reducing Distractions in Windows 10 or 11 – different settings and features built into Windows 10 or 11 that may help reduce distractions while using your computer for school

Other

Tech resources that are amazing, but didn’t fit nicely into the categories above 😛

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Technology Literacy – A self-directed tutorial designed for students that provides basic skill development for using College-approved applications, including LEARN, HUB, Webex, MS Teams, and Office 365. 
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Peer Tutors – Help you familiarize yourself with a specific College application and help you gain the basic-foundational tech literacy skills you need to be successful online.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Accessibility Features of WebEx – Inclusion and accessibility features of WebEx that you can enable yourself.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Captions & Subtitles in PowerPoint – Add real time captions in either the language you are presenting in, or translated into another language.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Speaker Coach – Allows you to record yourself presenting, and provides feedback and suggestions on a variety of elements.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Visual Ergonomics – Different setting, features, and suggestions to potentially reduce headaches and eyestrain from computer use.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Supports (and Other Supports) at Red River College Polytechnic – A very special blog post highlighting some of the supports available through the various departments at the College.
• Fun Features of Microsoft Word –
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word (Part 1) – Focus Mode (reduces visual distractions in Word), Microsoft Search (find features or additional information), keyboard shortcuts, and Quick Parts (a means of adding commonly used sections of text in a flash).
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word (Part 2) – Translate text, keyboard shortcuts for special characters/characters used in other languages, and Immersive Reader (but, Immersive Reader reading in another language!).
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word (Part 3) – Quick access toolbar (create your own toolbar of commonly used features), Styles (how to use and create styles), navigation pane (navigate through document/see an outline of a document), and how to email a document with a single click!

Wishing you and your loved ones a relaxing and memorable Holiday season, from all of us here at the Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder team!