Aerial view of campus with Williamsport, the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Mountain as a backdrop

Assistive Technology

Assistive Technologies can help a student succeed both inside and outside the classroom. Here are some ideas:

Classroom Assistance

Dragon NaturallySpeaking-This speech recognition software is designed to accommodate learning, physical, and visual disabilities.

JAWS for Windows-This on-demand screen reader software is designed to accommodate blind and visually impaired persons with on-screen navigation of the computer.

Williams Sound Personal FM Listening System-This wireless system allows the hearing impaired student wearing headphones to hear words spoken by the instructor, who is wearing a lapel microphone.

Communication Access Realtime Translation (C.A.R.T)-The instant translation of the spoken word into English text or ASL using a stenotype machine, notebook computer and realtime software. This is done by a CART provider, or an interpreter.

Echo Smartpen-This mobile note taker is a pen which records everything a student hears and links the audio to notes that a student writes. It can be used to transfer both notes and audio to a computer.

Infoscan TS Elite-This mobile note taker enables a student to scan text as if highlighting, and hear it read aloud or save it to a Personal Computer. 

AlphaSmart/Quickpad-These note taking systems are simpler versions of a laptop computer, used for typing and making graphs, which can be connected to a computer to load files.

Digital Recorders-These devices, found commonly at office supply stores, can be used to record and replay lectures and discussions with permission from the instructor.

Reading Assistance

Learning Ally-This organization has over 95,000 recorded books in their catalog. To access the recordings, you must be a member. 

Audio Books For Free-This website has about 1,500 titles. It is a good website to check out if you’re not sure you want to pay for a service like Audible. Read the home page for more information, and then click on “Enter our website.”

Audible-This website offers popular books (not textbooks) to its members, and emails books to the members each month.

Large Print Books-Many books come in large-print format, and can be acquired through searching “large-print” online or by asking store staff to order or find one.

Classic Books Online-This website offers classic novels in a customizable format for free.

PDF Equalizer-This software will open and read aloud any PDF file in a realistic synthetic voice.

Kurzweil 3000 Professional Color-This software scans printed text using an HPScanJet Pro 3000 s2 scanner and reads it aloud in a synthetic voice.

ZoomText-This software has a magnification tool of up to 16x, and reads documents, emails, and webpages aloud.