Previous blog posts with supports for task & time management:

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word – this post is jam-packed (full of) features in Word that either save you time, or help keep you focused!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Time Management Skills – learn about different resources the College has to offer for task and time management skills
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Reducing Distractions in Windows 10 or 11 – check this post out to learn about the different settings you can use to minimize visual distractions on your Windows computer
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Pomodoro Technique & Forest App – The Paa-muh-daw-row Technique structures your time into smaller chunks of work and break periods, with the thought that it is easier to focus for a short period of time, rather than a longer period of time. Forest is an app available for both android and iOS, as well as a web extension, that takes the Pomodoro Technique, and gamifies it! 
• 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: 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…)

Previous blog posts with supports for organization:

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word – Part 3! – check this post out to learn about the Quick Access Toolbar, and the Navigation pane
• 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…)
• Marking Emails as Read or Unread in Outlook – Learn how to change when emails are marked as read. This may help you remember to respond to emails you’ve already read.
• 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: Collections in Edge – learn about collections in Edge and how you can use them to organize websites that you frequent often, or may want to refer to on an upcoming assignment
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Digital Sticky Notes – want a digital version of the classic sticky note? And maybe some ideas of how to use them? Then check this post out!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tab Groups (in Edge) – check this post out for a fun (and colorful) way to organize your tabs in Edge!
• Reducing Distractions in Windows 10 or 11 – explore the different features built into Windows 10 and 11 Operating Systems that may help reduce distractions on your computer.

Previous blog posts with supports for writing:

• Tech Tips Blog post: Voice Typing in Windows 11 – learn about voice typing (voice dictation) built into the Windows 11 operating system
• Tech Tips Blog post: Voice Dictation (Apple Products) – check out how to access voice dictation across apple products
• Tech Tips Blog post: Changing the “Normal” Template in Word – this post goes over how you can change the normal template in Word, so that every new Word document you open has a specific style to it (font formatting, headers, etc…)
  • Staff Members – check out Staff Forum for resources on Accessible Best Practices!
• Tech Tips Blog post: Voice Dictation (Office 365) – voice dictation built into Word and other Office 365 products
• Tech Tips Blog post: Voice Dictation Commands (for Editing and Formatting) in Office 365 – “commands” that you can use with voice dictation in Office 365 to get the computer to perform an action, rather than type something (for example: formatting changes)
• Tech Tips Blog post: Microsoft’s Editor – explore the super-charged Editor in Office 365 that helps with spelling, grammar, conciseness, formality, and more!
• Tech Tips Blog post: RefWorks – learn about RefWorks, an application available for free, that supports references and citations

Did you know that all students (and staff) at the College can access Read&Write? And that it’s absolutely free of charge? True story!

Read&Write (or R&W) has supports for reading, writing, comprehension, notetaking, translation, studying, and more! It’s both a desktop application and web extension – meaning you have access to the amazing features for both documents on your computer, or online!

Even better yet, there is a tutorial in LEARN you can take that will walk you through the process of installing Read&Write, and using it yourself! The tutorial has both text and video based instructions, and is designed so that you can pick and choose the modules that are important to you! Oh, and you can self-enroll in the tutorial!

Read&Write Resources:

• Read&Write at RRC Polytech Information
• Recorded Version – Read&Write Live Demonstration
• Read&Write Self-Directed LEARN Tutorial
  • Enroll in the Read&Write Self-Directed LEARN Tutorial

Previous Blog Posts on Notetaking Supports

• 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 – 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.
• Tech Tips: Blog Post: Changing the “Normal” Template in Word – do you find that you’re repeatedly spending time formatting your documents to follow accessible best practices and look how you’d like them to? Then this is a time saving post for you! Learn how you can adjust what Word calls its “normal” template so that every new Word document opened has that adjusted formatting!
  • Staff Members – check out Staff Forum for resources on Accessible Best Practices!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Typing – gone are the days of voice dictation in specific apps! With Voice Typing (available in Windows 11) you can use voice dictation almost anywhere that text can be entered on your computer!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation (Apple Products) – learn about voice dictation across all Apple products!

Why is this post titled Reading Supports 2.0?
That’s because we’ve already done a post titled Reading Supports, and just like you can’t have document headers with the same title, we don’t think you should have blog posts with the exact same title either!

Previous Blog Posts on Reading Supports

• 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 posts on Read&Write:
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Read&Write Demonstration Recording – want to watch a recorded version of a Read&Write demonstration we did? Check out this blog post!
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Read&Write & the Read&Write LEARN Course – would you rather work through content on your own, where you learn about a feature and then are provided with an opportunity to try out that feature? Then the Read&Write LEARN course is for you!

Bonus – LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Reading

Maybe you heard of this blog from Red River Ready, maybe a friend told you about it, maybe you found a poster or table card somewhere around campus, or maybe you’re a returning student who is a long-time follower of the blog… However you heard about us, and whatever brought you here, we are glad to have you!

What to Expect

Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder is a blog dedicated to highlighting different technologies, or ways to use those technologies, whether they be apps, built-in features, or even strategies, all with the goal of making your academic (or work) life easier.

Stay tuned!
This is just a welcome post! In the weeks to come we’ll be posting some recap posts where we identify (what we call) a “support area” such as reading, and then outline the different posts we’ve done with resources to help you in that support area.

Stay Connected

Take a quick moment now and sign up for email notifications when new blog posts are added. This way during the busy parts of school, when you may need the supports the most, but have less time, you’ll get a reminder when new posts are added!

Red River College Polytechnic – Newsletter Subscriptions
*Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder is listed as “Accessibility Tech Tips”

If you caught one of our previous posts on Android Accessibility Features, you’ll remember that we talked about captions. But, we didn’t talk about one really amazing captions feature (yet) – live captions for phone calls!

We held off on talking about this feature in past posts as it’s unfortunately only available on the Pixel line of phones. But now is the time! This post will be dedicated to exploring some of the utterly amazing Accessibility features specific to the Pixel line of Google phones!

Live Captions for Phone Calls

With Live Captions on a Pixel phone, you can get captions of what the other person is saying, and type your responses to be read aloud to them!

Android Accessibility Article, Live Captions for Phone Calls

Magnification App

Need something magnified that isn’t on your screen? Perhaps you need to read some fine print, or can’t read the bus numbers on a bus stop sign? Maybe a sign is too far away to read, but you can’t get any closer (e.g., store hours for a store across the street). Or perhaps font size isn’t what it making something hard to read, but color contrast is the issue.

Google’s Magnifier App allows users to magnify text, apply color filters, and search, listen or copy text (through Google Lens).

Download the Magnifier App from the PlayStore

Quick Phrases

Do you love using your Google Assistant, but, sometimes get a little tired of, or sometimes forget to start by saying “Hey Google”? Well on the Pixel line of phones, you can set up Quick Phrases that allow you to complete tasks without having to first prompt Google.

Android Accessibility Article, Google Assistant Help

While there are still more Android Accessibility Features we could talk (or write) about, let’s take a break and look at some of the Accessibility Features of iPhones!

Vision Related Accessibility Settings

Vision related Accessibility settings covers options to meet each individuals users’ vision needs, and preferences. Options such as adjusting colors, using dark mode, adjusting text size, zoom, and hearing text read aloud are included in this category.

• If you find the color of items on screen difficult to see, try adjusting some of the
  Color Settings or use Dark Mode
• If reading text on your iPhone is difficult, you can use Zoom, or adjust settings to make text easier to see
• If you would like to “zoom in” on objects in the real-world, use the Magnifier app! On certain iPhone models, there is even a “detection mode” that can detect people and identify door, describe images, and read text aloud!
• To reduce the visual motion, say from animations or screen transitions, you can choose to stop or reduce onscreen motion on your iPhone
• You can also hear audio descriptions for video content!
• and change sounds and vibrations (including haptics)

For a full list, please visit this Apple’s Support Article on Vision Related Accessibility Features

Mobility Related Accessibility Settings

Mobility related Accessibility settings covers options for how you use and interact with your iPhone. This covers voice control and voice dictation (which were covered in previous blog posts), predictive text and switch control (among others).

• Connect switches to your iPhone and assign actions
• Use head tracking and facial expressions to interact with your phone

For a full list, please visit Apple’s Support Article on Mobility Related Accessibility Settings

Hearing Related Accessibility Settings

Hearing related Accessibility settings covers customizations and features to best suit your individual hearing needs.

• Use Live Captions to turn speech and sounds into text displayed on your iPhone
• Use Sound Recognition to alert you to certain sounds in your environment

For a full list, please visit Apple’s Support Article on Hearing Related Accessibility Settings

Speech Related Accessibility Settings

Speech related Accessibility Settings covers customizations to best support your communication needs and preferences.

• Live Speech is a feature that allows you to type a message, and have your phone read it aloud
• You can even record your personal voice to use with Live Speech!

For a full list, please visit Apple’s Support Article on Speech Related Accessibility Settings

We’re back again, with even more Android Accessibility Features!

If you missed the previous posts on Android Accessibility, here they are:

• Android Accessibility Features, Tech Tips Blog Post
• (More) Android Accessibility Features, Tech Tips Blog Posts

Captions

You can turn captions on through the settings on your device, in the Accessibility section, or by tapping the live caption icon on your screen, after pressing the volume button. You can move the caption box, hide profanity, indicate sounds such as laughter and applause, you can even adjust the size and style of captions!

Android Accessibility Article, Translate Speech to Text with Live Captions

Android Accessibility Article, Caption Preferences

Live Transcribe

Live Transcribe is a feature that takes speech and sound, and displays it as text on your Android device. Pixel phones come with the Live Transcribe feature already installed on their device, but other Android devices can still use this feature by downloading the “Live Transcribe & Sound Notifications” app from the PlayStore.

Live Transcribe & Notification, App from Google Play

There are also some really cool settings like having your phone vibrate when your name is spoken, being able to type a response while Live Transcribe is still running, or search in Live Transcribe!

Android Accessibility Article, Use Live Transcribe

Sound Amplifier

Sound Amplifier is an app you can download and use with headphones to filter, augment, and amplify sounds both in your environment, and on your Android device. What’s really cool is that you can adjust what is being amplified to reduce unwanted sounds or boost quiet sounds, you can even make adjustments specific to each ear!

Sound Amplifier, App from Google Play

Android Accessibility Article, Sound Amplifier

Connecting Hearing Aids to your Android Device

If you have an Android device with Android 14 or later, you may even be able to connect your hearing aids directly to your device!

Android Accessibility Article, Connect Hearing Aids to your Device