Software & Technology

Glean is an online note-taking app that allows audio recording that can easily capture lectures and sync with live note-taking. This software can also transcribe the audio into typed text. Slides/documents/images/audio can be imported and sync with typed notes. 

Livescribe smartpens are physical pens that can record what is written on the paper and for some pens can also record audio at the same time. The pens can connect to any device and have data transfer into a digital format to make it easier to listen back to the recording or view notes. There are different types of pens depending on what kind of style works best for the user. These are the best options for handwriting notes that can later be digitized. LiveScribe smartpens may be loaned out to students registered under disability services with a notetaking accommodation for one semester. 

Digital Voice Recorders are a good option for lectures if a student is unable to look at a computer screen or can’t hand write notes. These also provide an alternative if a computer, phone, or other devices aren’t allowed in class. Its helpful to break up recordings into sections to make it easier to review. The recorder has a USB stick that to allow data transfer onto a computer. Digital Voice Recorders may be loaned out to students registered with Disability Services with a note-taking accommodation for one semester. 

This is a free option for students from access to Microsoft 365. The layout resembles an online notebook that allows for categorizing and dividing up subjects. This software allows for audio recording that syncs with notes. OneNote serves as a good option for experienced note-takers. A stylus can be used to draw or handwrite notes. Slide decks/images/audio/video can be imputed into the notes.

Otter.ai allows audio recording that provides live (AI generated) transcriptions. It can generate summaries of the recording and allows comments to be added.  There is a free version that allows up to 300 minutes/month (30 minutes/conversation). Otter.ai can import audio and video files that can be transcribed. Conversations area also organized and broken down into sections based on the date and time of the recordings.

Read&Write is provided for free through a site license at UCCS. Anyone with a UCCS email can download and use Read&Write. This tool provides features such as text-to-speech, talk&type for dictation, screen masking, highlighting for note taking, vocabulary list and dictionary to help understand terms and concepts. This is a handy solution to help with reading and writing. 

Immersive Reader is a free tool through Microsoft Word that can read all word documents aloud. It is not as robust as other text-to-speech options but allows user to adjust playback speeds and voices are available through the computer’s operating system.

NaturalReaders is a good tool and free to use for text-to-speech. Users can get free use of premium voices for 20 mins/a day. It has a user friendly interface and the paid version allows for OCR so users can convert their own PDFs from image based to text based so it can be read aloud with the text-to-speech tool. 

Bionic Reading is a free tool with up to 2000 characters that can be converted. It allows a reader to “skip” over words and text by highlighting the first few letters in each word. This is a helpful option for students who might have a hard time focusing on the reading and content.

There a variety of built-in tools that are provided for Windows PC, macOS, and iOS.