You are welcome to visit the HA|AT team in Forestry, Room 111 to learn more about the latest tech-assisted learning options that we offer at UC.
Hangarau Āheinga | Assistive Technology
Hangarau Āheinga|Assistive Technology (HA|AT) is a term used for computer software or specialist equipment that allows you to improve, maintain or increase the quality and consistency of your work. It can help you with tools for accessing information, creating and presenting content and undertaking research.
HA|AT is available to students and staff.
Staff can write to assistech@canterbury.ac.nz and book an appointment to discuss their AT needs.
Did you know that not all students have the same learning style? Perhaps you have one that is unique to you. To find out more, visit LD Pride. And yes of course, we do have the technology to support your preferred style of learning!
HA|AT is also beneficial to international students who come from non-English backgrounds or for whom the medium of instruction was not English. HA|AT not only aids you in improving language but also helps you in gaining a better understanding of the subject content.
- Accessibility tools
Change text colour
Change background colour
Change text size
Want to hear what other students have said about our tech?
Assistive technology currently available at UC (training is provided)
- TextHELP Read & Write can be installed on students' personal devices. Please check out the instructions.
- Otter.ai notetaking, live transcription/captioning, and dictation app
- OrbitNote helps users to listen, highlight, draw and take notes directly on PDFs
- Sennheiser listening devices
- Dragon speech recognition
- JAWS screen reader
- Natural Reader screen reader
- MAGic screen magnifier
- ZoomText screen magnifier/reader
- OpenBook optical character recognition
- CCTV magnifier
These applications are available in dedicated study areas on campus.
For assistance and demonstrations, please contact assistech@canterbury.ac.nz
Take charge and boost your studies with TextHelp Read&Write
Are you struggling with reading, understanding and remembering your course material? Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed trying to balance your studies, completing assignments, preparing for exams and recording references for research projects?
If you need support with your reading, writing and research, you can sign up for TextHelp Read & Write. This support software is free for all UC students to use, and can help you to personalise your learning and get back on track with your studies. It can help you to:
- Hear words, passages or whole documents read out loud with easy-to-follow dual colour highlighting
- Check grammar, spelling and pronunciation
- Use dictionaries to help with definitions of difficult words
- Highlight and collect text in documents or the web and auto-create bibliographies
- Convert selected text into an audio file
- Convert speech into text
- Remove ads from webpages that can be distracting
- Build a vocabulary list
Click here to preview Read&Write's floating tool bar!
To access this software from home - install it on your PC, Mac or any other personal device - by simply following these steps:
- Make sure you are online
- Search in Browser or Click: TextHelp for Education
- Scroll down and Click Try Read&Write tab on the Home page
- Choose the platform you want (Ex. windows, Mac etc)
- Follow prompts
- Click on Accept and Install (may take a few minutes)
- When asked, choose Sign in with Microsoft
- Log in using your UC email (xxx@uclive.ac.nz)
For more information, go to TextHelp Video Tours, or browse the guides below.
TextHelp Read&Write training guide
Read&Write for Windows-Quick Guide for Tool Usage
Read&Write Key Tools for Specific Higher Education Needs
Read&Write for Windows: Support Tools for Students with Dylexia
Read&Write for Windows: Supports for International Students in Higher Education
Read&Write for Mac: Quick Reference Guide
Read&Write for Mac: Training Guide
For assistance write to assistech@canterbury.ac.nz
Advance your understanding and notetaking with Otter.ai
Do you struggle to hear your lecturers, or find it hard to take notes and watch what is happening at the same time? Are you a non-native English speaker?
Otter.ai is a powerful real-time transcription software that records spoken dialogue, converts it to text in real-time, and then saves the transcript for you to review later.
Here are a couple of helpful links to get you started using Otter.ai:
Otter.ai Transcribing & Notetaking Web App: Quick Start Guide
Otter.ai and Notetaking Methods and Tools
The document below contains several examples of how Otter.ai has helped students all around the world to be more efficient, engaged, and successful in their studies.
How Innovation Technology is Helping Students (pdf 31KB, 8 pages)
Otter.ai is provided to eligible students free of charge. For assistance write to assistech@canterbury.ac.nz
Is accessing PDFs causing you stress?
Try OrbitNote!
It is an excellent tool to access, edit and interact with PDFs. It is much more than the standard PDF reader. It is a PDF editor that can take your PDF docs to a whole new level.
Click here to preview OrbitNote's floating tool bar!
Features include:
Text to Speech: Reads words, passages, or whole documents aloud with easy-to-follow dual color highlighting.
Text: Let’s you type text on top of the PDF
Pushpin: Ideal for making notes or adding instructions or other helpful hints to a PDF assignment.
Freehand Drawing: To scribble and draw on your PDF to complete assignments or highlight important information.
Shapes Drawing: For creating circles, rectangles and lines with customized lines and fill color.
Text and Voice comments: For collaboration, showing understanding and giving feedback
Highlighters: Collect highlights from text in documents or the web for summarizing research and to create bibliographies.
One-click OCR scanning: Readable image-only PDFs at the touch of a button.
To install OrbitNote on your personal device, go to orbit.texthelp.com
This will prompt you to sign in with Microsoft or Google.
Select Microsoft and sign in with your UC login.
When prompted, accept permissions.
You can also install the OrbitNote Chrome web extension
Now you are good to go!
There are three dedicated study areas with specialist technology for students with disabilities.
Students are welcome to join and follow an online technology forum.
You can learn about learning support tools that can help in improving your grades and maximising your academic performance.
Please email if you would like to join.
Te Ratonga Whaikaha|Student Accessibility Service Study Areas
The Blue Room (book online)
The Blue Room (037A) is located in the basement of the Erskine building. There is a computer loaded with JAWS screen reader, MAGic text enlarger, OpenBook, Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition and Read & Write TextHelp software.
The Green Room (book online)
The Green Room (034A) is located in the basement of the Erskine building. There is a computer loaded with JAWS screen reader, MAGic text enlarger, OpenBook, Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition, Read & Write TextHelp and ZoomText software. A Mac computer is also available.
The Alcove
The Alcove is located on Level 2 of the Puaka-James Hight building and students with disabilities have priority use at all times. There are two computers and a SmartView CCTV magnifier in the Alcove. The assistive technology on these computers includes JAWS screen reader, MAGic text enlarger, OpenBook, Read & Write TextHelp, MathType and Inspiration software.
Some free and proprietary technology that can assist you with your studies.
Read&Write for Google Chrome provides support tools for the web and common file types accessed through Google Drive, including: Google Docs, Google Slides, PDF & ePubs.
Equipment available for loan
- Digital Voice Recorders
- Sennheiser hearing devices and live-captioning support
- Ergonomic accessories
Useful information for students
UC IT Help is Available
Microsoft's Disability Answer Desk
Google Drive to create, edit, share information & collaborate in real-time
For other ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES: View Other technology supports (630Kb, 3 pages); Download In WORD ( 133kb, 4 pages)
These include:
- Tools to match your learning style and improve your study skills with software that is available on campus and a few other good ones that can be easily acquired at little or no cost.
- Software for reading, writing, hands-free word processing, research, visual thinking, organising and managing information.
- Apps for mobile devices: reading, notetaking and dictation.
Free, Freemium & Open Source Applications you can download and use.
Quick start guides
Links to some free & online resources
Text-to-Speech & Speech-to-Text Software
- MS Word text to speech options gives instant reading access.
- Immersive Reader is a Text-to-Speech tool in Microsoft 365.
- Dictation tool is a Speech-to-Text tool in Mocrosoft 365.
- Natural Reader is a Text-to-Speech software with natural sounding voices.
- NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access) is a free screen reader.
- Balbolka is a free Text-to-Speech application. It reads and converts text to audio format. It can be used from off a USB stick.
- Read & Write with confidence. Available for Windows, Mac, Google and Tablets
Grammar and Spell-Check Software
- Ginger helps you correct your grammar and check your spelling while typing.
- Grammarly reduces time-consuming revision by providing instant proofreading and editing support. Apps & extensions are available.
Word-Prediction Software
- Lightkey predicts and completes words as you type the first two-three letters of the word. It gets better with usage.
Screen Area Magnifiers
- Dragnifier is a magnifying lens that comes up on the screen with one click on the keyboard.
- Lens is a handy tool for magnifying parts of the screen.
Mind Mapping Software
These are basic concept mapping applications that can help you to capture your initial ideas and thoughts which can later be reorganised to communicate information or produce a quality piece of writing.
Multiple Tool Suites
- MyStudyBar is a free, compact and convenient package of a combination of assistive technology tools that can even be used from a USB stick on any computer that has a Windows operating system.
- G Suite for Higher Education is a free, cloud-based collection of apps including Google Drive, Gmail, GDocs, GSheets, GSlides etc. They can be accessed from anywhere, on any device, for real-time sharing and collaboration of information.
Daisy Player
- AMIS Reader is an open source DAISY book player. DAISY books are synchronised text/audio multimedia books.
Disclaimer
The software applications mentioned above are free of cost and offer no warranty. Hangarau Āheinga|Assistive Technology provides this list as only a guide to open source software and does not accept liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of this information.