World Campus Students Can Use These Adaptive Technology Tools at No Cost

Three people – two women sitting at a table and a man leaning over their shoulders behind them – looking at a computer screen in what appears to be a computer lab at a library

At Penn State World Campus, we strive to ensure that our course materials are accessible to all our students, so we want to highlight some of the adaptive technology tools and other resources available to students at no cost.

Reading Tools

Read & Write

Read & Write Gold is a University-supported text-to-speech tool that includes a variety of features, including the ability to have digital content such as websites, Word documents, and PDFs read out loud. This software allows you to adjust the reading speed, fast forward and rewind, and highlight text as it is read.

In addition to the reading options, it also comes with additional learning features, such as:

picture dictionary
verb checker
screenshot reader
translator
word prediction
screen masking

This tool is available to all students, faculty, and staff, and has a standalone application for MacOS and Windows as well as a mobile app and web extension for Chrome. You can download Read & Write by visiting the Student Disability Resources website.

Immersive Reader

Turning on the Immersive Reader, available within Office 365 apps and select Canvas pages, will temporarily remove most elements from a page other than the text, providing a much cleaner and simpler view of the content. Within the Immersive Reader, you can change the text size, style, and color on the page. You can also highlight different parts of speech or use a picture dictionary for keywords. This tool can even read text out loud at a variety of speeds. Learn more about how to use the Immersive Reader. The Immersive Reader button is located at the top of each content page in Canvas, but if you are in a course where it is unavailable, there are additional read-aloud options.

Thorium Reader

Thorium Reader is one of the most accessible tools for reading digital books and documents in the EPUB format. Features include adjustable text size and style options, a built-in read-aloud tool, and compatibility with screen readers. Learn more and download Thorium Reader.

Writing Tools

Microsoft Dictate

Like the Immersive Reader, Microsoft Dictate is a tool that is integrated into several Microsoft apps, like Word and Outlook. Using this tool and a microphone, you can have your speech converted to text in almost 30 different languages, with additional support for real-time translation in 60 languages. In addition to converting speech to text, you can also use it to issue commands such as “new line” or “stop dictation” to control the writing process with your voice. Learn more about how to use Microsoft Dictate.

Google Voice Typing

Google Voice Typing is another speech-to-text feature, available for free in Google Docs and Slides. Note: you must use the Chrome browser to have access to this feature. Google Voice Typing has support for dozens of languages and has voice commands to help you navigate and format your documents or slides. Learn more about Google Voice Typing.

Conversion Tools

SensusAccess

SensusAccess is a document conversion tool available to all Penn State students. When you upload a document — such as a PDF or Word file — the tool can quickly convert it into a variety of other formats. You can also transform text into an audio file, allowing you to turn an article into a podcast you can listen to on the go. Learn more about SensusAccess at Penn State.

Ally

Ally is a conversion tool integrated into Canvas that allows you to convert course content pages and documents into alternate formats. Simply select the alternate formats icon next to a page title or document, and you will be presented with a list of options including EPUB, audio, translated text, and more. Learn more about using Ally’s alternate format feature.

General/Display Tools

Morphic

Morphic is a toolbar available for both Mac and PC that gives you quick and easy access to a number of different settings on your computer, particularly built-in accessibility features such as screen readers, magnification, color contrast enhancers, and more. The toolbar can be customized to your specific needs, so you can enable quick access to the features you use most. Visit the Morphic site to learn more and download it for free.

Chrome Captions

The Chrome browser allows you to display captions for any video, whether the video has built-in captions or not. (Keep in mind that these captions are automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.) Learn how to turn on Chrome captions on your preferred device.

EquatIO

Providing several ways to both read and write digital math equations, EquatIO is an invaluable tool for anyone enrolled in a math-heavy course. Standout features include the ability to have math content accurately read aloud, a graph editor, and both speech-to-text and handwriting input. Download the EquatIO toolset to get the standalone app and browser add-on.