Category Archives: Pain, Fatigue and Stress

iStudez Pro on the iPad

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iStudiez ProIStudez Pro has been specifically developed for those studying in the usual school/college/university setting with schedule planning, assignments,classroom changes, tracking marks etc. It can be used on the iPad, iPhone and Mac computer (£1.99) but there is an iStudiez Lite version for free, although this does not offer all the options mentioned.  MA felt that the Pro version was “good, helped with personal organisation and managing deadlines. Useful to set reminders for assignments up to seven days prior due date. Colour coding feature ability useful allowing user to ‘check at a glance’.

I do not use this app as often now as I no longer find myself needing to check my schedule daily; however it is an extremely useful app to help with organisation.”

MA University of Birmingham

YouTube video App Review: iStudiez Pro for Students!

Babelbar for reading aloud and changing the look of Facebook, Twitter and Google docs

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“Babelbar works with Facebook, Twitter and Google docs.  It is useful if you do not have your own text to speech program.”

babelbar

 

google docs

Babelbar is an extension or add-on for internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari and appears over the web page.  You need to highlight the text first then it will speak.  It can change the colour background, font size and translate text.

 

 

 

Attendee at Accessing the Higher Ground Conference

Easy Bib app for iOs and Android tablets and phones

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Easy Bib appTeena has passed on advice about the EasyBib app for students that find it incredibly difficult or time consuming to provide a reference for written assignments. This free and useful iPad,iPod and iPhone 4 app is available through iTunes or as an Android app from Google Play. It will do most of the hard work for you but we have found issues using certain devices – anything post iPad3 seems to work well.

Hover over the ISBN number of a book with a steady hand. The app will automatically scan the barcode, and providing you are connected to Wifi, will generate a bibliography reference for you. Three styles are available including Chicago, APA (Harvard) & MLA.

Once your reference has been generated, email it to yourself (singularly or in a group) with other references.

Teena from Oxford & Cherwell Valley College

Extra Note – Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.  There is also a useful introductory YouTube video on EasyBib iPhone and iPad App

 

AudioNote for iPad & iPhone

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AudioNote screen grabsAudioNote is a fantastic note taking app. The official description from the app store tells you how you can synchronise notes and audio with each key point being linked to the moment when the lecturer talks about that subject.  Because it works on a tablet or phone there is no need to wait for the laptop to boot up.

Bookmarks can be created throughout the audio recording to highlight important points for easy referencing.  It allows you to take pictures and insert them into your notes and AudioNotes can be exported to Evernote, saved and organised there. A yellow background can be used instead of white for those with visual stress/sensitivity. It costs £2.99 and is available from the iTunes store.

This YouTube video is a good introduction to AudioNote

This comes with thanks to the Disability Advisory Service at Imperial College

Speech to Text app on a mobile

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“I like to generate a transcript of a lecture session and I use speech to text to dictate into my mobile or I record the session”  D.T.

There are several ways of dictating and producing text on the mobile – iPhone has built in speech recognition (Siri) for many of its apps or the use of Dragon Dictation when online that allows short paragraphs to be dictated and collected within its own note pad. Android has Dragon mobile assistant and if you want to experiment there is Utter in beta mode for commands.  It does not make the Android totally hands free, but it shows the beginning of an off/online conversation with reactions!

utter! Android Voice Command Assistant – BETA! YouTube video

Taking notes on an iPad and using iCloud

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icloud“I don’t like pens and papers! Too much waste and extra cost.  I’ve been using my iPad with a stylus and several note taking/drawing apps so far. I synchronise all my notes with iCloud (it was iWorld before Apple introduced iCloud) and I’m perfectly happy – so is my room as it doesn’t have stacks of paper and pens around :>)”  Trinity – computer scientist

There are so many note taking apps and drawing apps that it is hard to advise which ones are the best but a combination of Evernote and Skitch is a good one – the Appadvice site has a note taking advice page with many more apps and the University of Exeter have a blog with a review of some more useful time management, maps, social network and note taking iPad apps. They mention WritePad that has handwriting recognition. 

WritePad for iPad YouTube Video