Technology: Student Success Tech Apps

restic is an open-source downloadable application that can facilitate quick, resource-sparing, and thorough backups. While it is available for free, its open-source nature means there may be issues. So, use with caution.

Veeam is a software that supports data backup and retention for institutions and individuals. Their "community" (personal) software is free.

Read Aloud is a free browser extension that will read websites and documents aloud for you.

Immersive Reader is the Edge-native Read Aloud solution. It is a bit more clunky than other readers, but it does not require extensions or addons.

Speechify Text to Speech is a browser addon that will read text aloud to you in different voices. It is available for limited purposes, but you can expand its uses for a subscription.

Perplexity is a generative AI tool that uses LLM to communicate the results of its web crawls. It can also analyze data. While its web crawling abilities are impressive, the results are communicated to you through a complicated probablistic text generation process. So, double-check what it says about the sites it finds!

Also, THIS IS NOT a replacement for searching in databases. For information about using AI tools in academic search processes, contact Reed Hepler (rhepler@csi.edu).

Opera Browser has AI built into itself automatically, so you get technology-improved insights from searches and web navigation.

However, the College of Southern Idaho encourages students and faculty to use the Microsoft Edge browser for all purposes. Use this tool for personal use.

Zoom is the standard digital meeting platform, for webinars and group meetings and even devotional gatherings over the internet.

Google Meet is the Google-native web conferencing system. You can collaborate with Google email users using this app (and you can sometimes use it without a Google account).

Use this tool if you would like more robust text chats.

Mailspring combines the various mail inboxes you have into one. This is especially useful if you have personal accounts outside of Outlook, or if you are taking classes at ISU and CSI simultaneously, etc.

Compose is the Copilot capability in Outlook or the web. It can help you write effective and action-oriented emails in whichever voice you prefer.

This Edge extension tool provides a timer for you to focus your work and avoid distractions. It also provides "white noise" to ensure you are not affected by audible or visual stimuli.

This extension for Edge provides two types of noises: nature sounds and white noises. These seek to help you maintain calm in times of stress or provide relief from audible or visual stimuli.

Standard Notes is a downloadable app that provides the opportunity to create, tag, and store plaintext notes on any topic you wish. There are paid tiers, but the free tier has a wide range of abilities.

Mnemosyne is a free flash-card tool which optimizes your learning process.

Coconote is a tool that turns audio and video files into textual notes and study helps.

Gobby is a non-proprietary web-based application that allows collaborators to edit a document together without requiring subscriptions to the same service.

This tool will help you edit your documents and improve their contents in real time, with the added bonus of probabilistic suggestions.

This text generator took the internet (no, the WORLD) by storm in November 2022. It can generate text, audio, images, and entire slide decks in five minutes with the right prompting. You can even use custom-made AI tools for free (it takes a subscription to create one, though).

Claude is similar to ChatGPT, but its voice is much more relaxed, welcoming, and natural. It focuses on text output that is accessible and flowing. It can also create web pages and images through code. Check out the side-by-side abilities of Artifacts!