Assistive Technology at Hawkeye

If you are approved for alternative text accommodations, you will access your digital textbooks using Kurzweil. Student Accessibility Services will help you set up your Kurzweil account, which is free for you. Your books will be placed in your public folder for you to access throughout the semester.

Kurzweil has many features that can help, but its main purpose is to read textbooks aloud. If you want to learn about its other features, you can schedule a time with Student Accessibility Services.

Audio Note Taking is a way to record lectures using Glean software. If you're approved for this accommodation, Student Accessibility Services will help you get access to the software for free. After creating a login and password, you can start recording lectures on your laptop or phone. With Audio Note Taking, you can also highlight important parts, record by PowerPoint slide, and take typed notes at the same time.

If you're approved for a Smart Pen, you can check out a Livescribe Smart Pen from Student Accessibility Services. This special pen and paper let you record lectures while taking written notes. Later, you can use the pen to find specific parts of the recorded lecture by tapping on your notes.

Some students can understand advanced math concepts but may have trouble doing basic math quickly. Students with learning disabilities, memory problems, or cognitive impairments may benefit from using a basic calculator.

If you have a visual impairment, you might benefit from using a calculator with large print or one that reads the numbers aloud.

Some students find noise-cancelling headphones helpful because they block out background noise. These headphones can also help reduce overall sensory stimulation.

If you have a visual impairment, you might find magnifiers helpful. This could be a simple magnifying glass or something more advanced like a Digital Video Magnifier.

If you’re hard of hearing, you might use a Frequency Modulation (FM) system. This system sends the teacher’s voice directly to you at a steady level, so you can hear it clearly even if there is background noise or if the teacher is far away.

An FM system has a small microphone, a transmitter, a receiver, and a way to send the sound from the receiver to your ear.

Captioning shows the text version of spoken words and other sounds on TV, webcasts, films, DVDs, live events, and more. It includes not just the dialogue, but also who is speaking, sound effects, and music descriptions.

Closed captioning means you can turn it on or off yourself, while open captioning is always on. Real-time captioning is used for live events or presentations. Hawkeye can provide captioning for both recorded materials and live events.

If you have trouble with hearing, writing, attention issues like ADHD or anxiety, learning disabilities, or other challenges, recording lectures can help you understand the material better. You can use your own recording device or borrow one from Student Accessibility Services.

If you have this accommodation, you’ve agreed with Student Accessibility Services that the recordings are for your personal use only. You should not post them online or share them with other students.

If you have a visual impairment, you might find software that lets you zoom in on any computer program helpful.

This accommodation is very helpful for many students with dyslexia, visual impairments, fine motor difficulties, learning disabilities, and more. Speech-to-text software uses voice recognition to turn spoken words into written text. It can also understand speech to follow commands on a computer.

At Hawkeye, we usually use Nuance Dragon software for speech-to-text needs. If you’re approved for this accommodation, Student Accessibility Services will help you get the software for free.