Welcome 2024, and welcome to new and returning students! Hopefully you had a refreshing holiday season. 🙂

To start the year we wanted to do another (yes, another) post to summarize the different supports we’ve highlighted. Maybe your New Years Resolution is to be more organized, read more, be more focused, or maybe just generally, get better grades. …and that my friends, is why we’re doing another summary style post!

This time however, we’re formatting things a little differently! What’s the application, where is it available, what does it support, and blog posts for more information, all presented in a neat little table!

Don’t like information presented in a table?
Check out our last post of 2023 for a different style of a summary post! Tech Tips Blog Post: 2023 Wrap-Up

What’s the application, and how does it help?

Other (awesome) blog posts not listed above

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Reducing Distractions in Windows 10 or 11 – different settings and features built into Windows 10 or 11 that may help reduce distractions while using your computer for school
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Technology Literacy – A self-directed tutorial designed for students that provides basic skill development for using College-approved applications, including LEARN, HUB, Webex, MS Teams, and Office 365. 
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Peer Tutors – Help you familiarize yourself with a specific College application and help you gain the basic-foundational tech literacy skills you need to be successful online.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Accessibility Features of WebEx – Inclusion and accessibility features of WebEx that you can enable yourself.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Captions & Subtitles in PowerPoint – Add real time captions in either the language you are presenting in, or translated into another language.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Visual Ergonomics – Different setting, features, and suggestions to potentially reduce headaches and eyestrain from computer use.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Supports (and Other Supports) at Red River College Polytechnic – A very special blog post highlighting some of the supports available through the various departments at the College.

In-Person IT Support at NDC and EDC

From January 2nd to 15th, there will be pop-up service desks at both the NDC (in DM18) and EDC (at the Lower Learning Commons Service Desk) campuses.

The pop-up service desks will assist Students, Faculty and Staff with their IT related issues such as: accessing Wi-Fi, setting up MFA and other account or IT issues. 

All traditional channels for requesting support will remain operational alongside the pop-up service desk:

• submitting a ticket at the ITS Service Desk Website
• email (ITS Service Desk servicedesk@rrc.ca or Learn Support learn@rrc.ca)
• ITS Service Desk Phone number 204-632-2125

Read&Write (also known as R&W) is a new, and free, application available to all staff and students at Red River College Polytechnic! Features in the application support learners with reading, comprehension, writing, studying, notetaking, translation, and more! To help promote this new application, we’re holding a live demonstration!

Event Details

Wednesday February 14th 2023, noon-1pm
Connected Classroom (G139)
Notre Dame Campus

Or attend virtually through Microsoft Teams!

Registration

Registration is recommended as there is a limit of 40 people for the in-person session:

• Register to attend in person

• Register to attend virtually (through Teams)

Accessibility notice: The primary entrance to this classroom requires stairs, alternate entrance requires going outside. If you have any access needs for this, or require any other accommodations, please reach out to eament@rrc.ca (preferably with a weeks’ notice).

…and just like that, 2023 is almost over! But what a year it’s been! Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder celebrated its first birthday (there was no cake), we had snowfall warnings in April that were no joke, and, well I’m sure you all can fill in another memory of 2023.

As we move into the Holiday season, we thought we’d “wrap” things up by outlining the different types of supports we’ve identified, and the tech resources highlighted for those supports. Links to previous blog posts are included in each section, and you may even find a new resource (or 2)!

Reading

So far on the blog we’ve looked at 2 main supports for Reading – Immersive Reader (a part of Microsoft Office) and Kurzweil 3000 (text-to-speech software). While this may not seem like a lot of options, both of these supports are amazing resources and are free to use for College students (and staff).

• 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 Post: Kurzweil 3000 – The main feature of Kurzweil 3000 is text-to-speech, but Kurzweil has so many other features that also help with comprehension, writing and studying.

…and if you’re the type that wants to compare and contrast the two supports to one another, we’ve got you covered!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Reading Week – Reading Supports – A special post highlighting some common reading difficulties, and the features that Kurzweil 3000 and Immersive Reader have to support these experiences.

Bonus Support – LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Reading

Notetaking

Now when we say “notetaking” we don’t just mean during an in-person live lecture, and these notetaking supports have your back for both in-person, online, and notetaking while reading!

• 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 (rrc.ca) – 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.

Writing Supports

Writing a paper is made up of many steps, and with each step, there is a technology resource available to support you!

Research

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Collections in Edge – A more in-depth and organized way of saving webpages that you frequent often, or want to save to revisit at a later date.

Organize your thoughts

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil 3000 – help you to organize your thoughts, group ideas together, develop a flow to your paper, or even be repurposed to help you develop a timeline or a plan to help keep you on track.

Write

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation – Did you know that the majority of people can speak up to three times faster than they can write? Try using voice dictation and see if it saves you time when completing written work!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers + Voice Dictation  – Combine Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil along with Voice Dictation in Word as a recipe for success to help you organize and write down your thoughts!

Refine/edit

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Microsoft’s Editor – An artificial intelligence (AI) powered service that not only reviews your work for you to check for spelling and grammar, but also checks for refinements such as clarity, conciseness, formality, and vocabulary (among others).
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation Commands for Editing and Formatting in Office 365 – Specific words or phrases that you can say, that Office applications understand as an action to carry out, rather than text to type. Take voice dictation one step further with voice commands!

References

• Tech Tips Blog Post: RefWorks – Simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an easy-to-use-tool for citation, bibliography, and reference management.

Still looking for more help with Academic Writing and Citation? Check out the supports our friends over at the Academic Success Centre have!

• Webpage: RRC Polytech Academic Success Centre, Academic Writing
• Webpage: RRC Polytech, Academic Success Centre, Writing Centre
• LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Fundamentals of Academic Writing
• LEARN Self-Directed Tutorial: Research Papers

Organization

Thought organization, time organization, task organization… *phew* Let’s just look at the supports we’ve highlighted!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil 3000 – help you to organize your thoughts, group ideas together, develop a flow to your paper, or even be repurposed to help you develop a timeline or a plan to help keep you on track.
• 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…).
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Collections in Edge – A more in-depth and organized way of saving webpages that you frequent often, or want to save to revisit at a later date.
• 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: Reducing Distractions in Windows 10 or 11 – different settings and features built into Windows 10 or 11 that may help reduce distractions while using your computer for school

Other

Tech resources that are amazing, but didn’t fit nicely into the categories above 😛

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Technology Literacy – A self-directed tutorial designed for students that provides basic skill development for using College-approved applications, including LEARN, HUB, Webex, MS Teams, and Office 365. 
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Peer Tutors – Help you familiarize yourself with a specific College application and help you gain the basic-foundational tech literacy skills you need to be successful online.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Accessibility Features of WebEx – Inclusion and accessibility features of WebEx that you can enable yourself.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Captions & Subtitles in PowerPoint – Add real time captions in either the language you are presenting in, or translated into another language.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Speaker Coach – Allows you to record yourself presenting, and provides feedback and suggestions on a variety of elements.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Visual Ergonomics – Different setting, features, and suggestions to potentially reduce headaches and eyestrain from computer use.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Supports (and Other Supports) at Red River College Polytechnic – A very special blog post highlighting some of the supports available through the various departments at the College.
• Fun Features of Microsoft Word –
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word (Part 1) – Focus Mode (reduces visual distractions in Word), Microsoft Search (find features or additional information), keyboard shortcuts, and Quick Parts (a means of adding commonly used sections of text in a flash).
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word (Part 2) – Translate text, keyboard shortcuts for special characters/characters used in other languages, and Immersive Reader (but, Immersive Reader reading in another language!).
  • Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word (Part 3) – Quick access toolbar (create your own toolbar of commonly used features), Styles (how to use and create styles), navigation pane (navigate through document/see an outline of a document), and how to email a document with a single click!

Wishing you and your loved ones a relaxing and memorable Holiday season, from all of us here at the Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder team!

We’re at it again, round three of Fun Features of Microsoft Word! But first, we have to take a moment and say, Word is great, there are so many features and modes, ribbons, toolbars and sections, and fun buttons to click on… but, at the same time having all of those different settings may also make it difficult to navigate Word or to find a particular setting. In walks in Fun Feature #8…

Fun Feature #8 – Quick Access Toolbar

One workaround for all of the different modes, ribbons, toolbars, sections, buttons, etc… would be to customize your Quick Access Toolbar with the most common features you use. This way you don’t have to navigate through the different ribbons and toolbars to find what you are looking for, the Quick Access Toolbar is always right at the top of Word!
LinkedIn Learning: Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

Fun Feature #9 – Styles in Word (& How to Create your Own)

Word comes with predefined “Styles” that you can use to format your document. By applying one of the predefined styles, you can automatically adjust text in your document to have consistent font, font size, font colors, and even spacing. The “heading” styles also create a means of navigating through your document (and don’t worry if you’re not sure what we’re talking about here, it may just be explained in an upcoming fun feature).

Now maybe you have a very particular font format you need to use for papers submitted to your instructors that doesn’t match any of the predefined styles. Guess what?… You can either modify an existing style to match what you need, or create a brand new style with the formatting required! Use the “Modify” option to essentially “save” the style to be used in future documents!
Microsoft Support: Customize or create new styles

Fun Feature #10 – Navigation Pane

Did you use headings in your document?! Well, from an accessibility perspective, Thank you! Headings create a means of navigating through a document with a screen reader, but you can also manually navigate through a document created with headings! So with the use of headings, you are creating a means of quickly finding different sections of information in your document! Wa-hoo!
Microsoft Support: Use the Navigation pane in Word

Fun Feature #11 – Emailing a Word Document (or PDF)

If you often need to email a Word document you worked on, there is a very quick (single click) way to do it! Plus, you can send the document as a Word doc or a PDF file! All you need to do is add “Email” and “Email as PDF attachment” to your quick access toolbar (Fun Feature #8 above)!
LinkedIn Learning: Email Word or PDF Docs

Reminder:

As a Red River College Polytechnic student, you have access to the latest version of Office 365, including Word, and to LinkedIn learning!

• Webpage: Red River College Polytechnic, Microsoft Office
• To access LinkedIn Learning, click on the LinkedIn Learning icon in HUB and use your College ID and password

Previous Fun Features of Microsoft Word Blog Posts:

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word – Part 2!

That’s right Tech Tips fans, we’re back with another round of fun features of Microsoft Word! Today we’ll be continuing to highlight fun features in Word, this week focusing in on features that support those who speak multiple languages.

…and if you missed the last blog post we’d suggest you taking a quick peek at it before reading this one as some of the features build from the last post to this one!
Tech Tips Blog Post: Fun Features of Microsoft Word

Fun Feature #5 – Translate Text

Maybe you’ve been sent a document with quotes or sections of text in another language, or maybe you find it easier to understand information when it’s in another language other than what the document is written in? Did you know that with Word you can translate sections of text, or translate an entire document into another language? Well you can! …It would sure be silly of us to mention this if it couldn’t be done… 😛
LinkedIn Learning: Translate text in a Word document

Fun Feature #6 – (More) Keyboard Shortcuts

We hinted at it in our last blog post, but there seems to be no end to the keyboard shortcuts in Word! In today’s table of shortcuts, special characters and characters used in other languages.
Microsoft Support: Keyboard Shortcuts in Word for Special Characters

Fun Feature #7 – Immersive Reader

Now if you’re left thinking “gee, it’s great that Word can translate text for me, and type in other languages, but, I’d really love to listen to my document be read aloud, in another language” … you’re not the only one who has thought that, and there is a way! Simply translate the text, either a section of text or the entire document (see Fun Feature #5 above), and then use Read Aloud built into Word! You can even use other features of Immersive Reader on your translated document such as line focus, text spacing, and even identify parts of speech!

Note: not all languages are supported, please check the below link to confirm if the language you would like to translate into and have read aloud is supported.
Microsoft Support: Languages and products supported by Immersive Reader

Reminder:

As a Red River College Polytechnic student, you have access to the latest version of Office 365, including Word, and to LinkedIn learning!

• Webpage: Red River College Polytechnic, Microsoft Office
• To access LinkedIn Learning, click on the LinkedIn Learning icon in HUB and use your College ID and password

Yes, you read that title right, today we’re here to show you some fun features of Microsoft Word!

Fun Feature #1 – Focus Mode

“Focus” is a mode built into Word that removes all of the ribbons and toolbars, and leaves you with a clean view of your document. This mode can be helpful when needing to read your document, but you don’t want to get caught up in formatting your document. You can find the Focus Mode in the “View” tab, then in the “Immersive” section. …or, you can find it by using the next Fun Feature!

Fun Feature #2 – Microsoft Search

Now, this one isn’t just for Word, because at the top of all Microsoft 365 applications, you’ll find a handy search box. Not only does this search box help you to locate information within your document, but also helps you to search for additional information – for example, are you looking for the part of your document where you wrote about how fabulous Dalmatian Dogs are? Well Microsoft Search will not only find that part of your document for you, but also allow you to search the internet for more information and pictures. Plus you can find commands or features for that application, find people you may want to share your document with, or find other related documents!
Microsoft Support: Find what you need with search in Microsoft 365 apps

Fun Feature #3 – Keyboard Shortcuts

You may be familiar with some of the common keyboard shortcuts such as ctrl+c (copy), ctrl+v (paste), but did you know there are keyboard shortcuts for opening/saving documents, formatting your document, and for how you view your document? Well there are! Below is a table of commonly used keyboard shortcuts in Word (but heads up, there are more and you might see this topic pop up again in a future blog post!).

For example, want to (very quickly) take the text in your current document and place it in a new document? Ctrl+A – Ctrl+C – Ctrl+N – Ctrl+V – DONE!
Microsoft Support: Commonly Used Keyboard Shortcuts in Word

Fun Feature #4 – Quick Parts

Do you find you are often typing the same information in multiple documents? For example, your contact information (like an email signature), program information (course code, instructor, etc…), or maybe even a topic and description of what you are writing about. No matter what type of text, you can add that text to “Quick Parts” in Word so that the next time you need to enter that text, you can select it from the Quick Parts section and have it automatically entered into your document!
LinkedIn Learning: Add commonly used text automatically

Reminder:

As a Red River College Polytechnic student, you have access to the latest version of Office 365, including Word, and to LinkedIn learning!

• Webpage: Red River College Polytechnic, Microsoft Office
• To access LinkedIn Learning, click on the LinkedIn Learning icon in HUB and use your College ID and password

Having access to your course materials on your computer is great! But, for some of us, that means that we are accessing our course materials on the biggest source of distraction we own.

Today’s blog post is here to highlight some of the different features built into Windows that may help reduce some of those distractions.

Minimize Visual Distractions in Windows

1. Turn off background images, animations and more by personalizing your Windows display
2. Personalize your toolbar – remove unnecessary and distracting apps
3. Turn off “Live Tiles” (a feature that shows you personalized updates for what’s happening in your world – aka a feature that shows you possible distractions)
4. Use “Focus Assist” to personalize which notifications pop-up on your screen and create periods of time with little to no distractions
5. Use the tools in Immersive Reader to reduce visual distractions and help you focus on what you’re reading

Note: how to access each of these features changes whether you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11. Please check out the following link for details on these features and how to access them.
Make it easier to focus on tasks – Microsoft Support

Bonus suggestion: if your computer is used for both school and personal, it might be a good idea for you to create two separate profiles on your computer. Create one account for you, and an account for school. In your school account, do not save your passwords for any distracting sites (social media, online shopping, etc…). For those of us who can’t remember our passwords and depend on them being saved or stored (in a secure way), this extra step we’d have to take can sometimes stop us from visiting those distracting sites.
Add or remove accounts on your PC – Microsoft Support

Some of the technology we’ve highlighted on the Tech Tips: Work Smarter, Not Harder blog didn’t fit into the previous summary posts, but we wanted to make sure our new subscribers were aware of these amazing supports!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Technology Literacy – Is a self-directed tutorial designed for students that provides basic skill development for using College-approved applications, including LEARN, HUB, Webex, MS Teams, and Office 365. 
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Peer Tutors – Help you familiarize yourself with a specific College application and help you gain the basic-foundational tech literacy skills you need to be successful online.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Accessibility Features of WebEx – Inclusion and accessibility features of WebEx that you can enable yourself.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Captions & Subtitles in PowerPoint – Add real time captions in either the language you are presenting in, or translated into another language.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Speaker Coach – Allows you to record yourself presenting, and provides feedback and suggestions on a variety of elements.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Visual Ergonomics – Different setting, features, and suggestions to potentially reduce headaches and eyestrain from computer use.

…and speaking of other supports, don’t forget to check out our very special blog post highlighting some of the supports available through the various departments at the College (Counselling, Accessibility, Indigenous, etc…) – Tech Tips Blog Post: Tech Supports (and Other Supports) at Red River College Polytechnic

Hands up if you’re finding it difficult to organize yourself?! We’ve all been there, but there are supports that can help you!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil 3000 – help you to organize your thoughts, group ideas together, develop a flow to your paper, or even be repurposed to help you develop a timeline or a plan to help keep you on track.
• 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…).
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Collections in Edge – A more in-depth and organized way of saving webpages that you frequent often, or want to save to revisit at a later date.
• 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.

A recap of different posts made to support you with writing!

• Tech Tips Blog Post: RefWorks – Simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an easy-to-use-tool for citation, bibliography, and reference management.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Microsoft’s Editor – An artificial intelligence (AI) powered service that not only reviews your work for you to check for spelling and grammar, but also checks for refinements such as clarity, conciseness, formality, and vocabulary (among others).
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Collections in Edge – A more in-depth and organized way of saving webpages that you frequent often, or want to save to revisit at a later date.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation – Did you know that the majority of people can speak up to three times faster than they can write? Try using voice dictation and see if it saves you time when completing written work!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Voice Dictation Commands for Editing and Formatting in Office 365 – Specific words or phrases that you can say, that Office applications understand as an action to carry out, rather than text to type. Take voice dictation one step further with voice commands!
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil 3000 – help you to organize your thoughts, group ideas together, develop a flow to your paper, or even be repurposed to help you develop a timeline or a plan to help keep you on track.
• Tech Tips Blog Post: Graphic Organizers + Voice Dictation  – Combine Graphic Organizers in Kurzweil along with Voice Dictation in Word as a recipe for success to help you organize and write down your thoughts!