Assistive Technology Archives - Page 2 of 3 - myBarton

Freedom

Assistive Technology, Concentration, Productivity, Students, Study support and revision, Wellbeing, Wellbeing

Freedom helps you reclaim focus and productivity.

News, social media, shopping, videos…these apps and websites are engineered to monopolize your time and attention. With Freedom, you can easily turn off the distractions that harm your productivity and wellbeing. Freedom gives you control.

If you need to focus on your work, break a habit, or simply improve your relationship with technology, Freedom can help. By blocking distracting websites and apps, you’ll be more focused and productive. You’ll develop healthier, more intentional digital habits, that give you control over your time and attention.

Freedom is used by millions of people each day and includes companies like Google, Apple & Microsoft as well as MIT and Harvard Universities as their customers.

Why do I need to block apps or the internet?

You lose 23 minutes each time

Studies show that every time you check email, a social feed, or respond to a notification, your mind requires 23 minutes of re-focus time to get back on task

Multitasking is 40% less productive

While we may feel incredibly productive jumping around putting out a lot of fires, we’re actually 40% less productive when multitasking. This links back to re-focus time too.

Willpower is a finite resource

Ignoring distractions takes effort that results in a temporary depletion of willpower. While we try to ignore it, the digital world is designed to win the battle.

Distractions are habit-forming

It’s easy to say “just turn it off” or “just quit it”, but research shows that it’s not easy to do. Our brains crave the rewards triggered by our digital distractions.

Free Features

Block Websites

Whether it’s Facebook, BBC News, or YouTube, block an unlimited number of distracting websites so you can focus on what matters.

Block Apps

Spending too much time on apps? Freedom lets you block time-wasting apps—from email clients to your favourite addicting games.

Block the Internet

When you need a break or a focus boost, block the whole internet with the click of a button. Save yourself from any distraction.

Block All Except

Create custom whitelists. Block all websites except for the ones you need to access. Keep access to websites you use for research for example.

Additional Browser Extensions

Freedom have built a number of free browser extensions that complement the main app. These extensions are currently supported on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. You can find the links to these extensions at the bottom of their downloads page.

Pause

Pause challenges you to momentarily pause and reflect before visiting a distracting website.

Limit

Limit allows you to limit your time spent on distracting websites.

Insight

Insight shows you where you are spending your time online.

8th April 2020

Cove

Assistive Technology, Students, Wellbeing, Wellbeing

Cove allows you to create music to capture your mood and express how you feel.

Instead of words, create music to reflect emotions like joy, sadness, calm and anger. You can store your music in a personal journal, or send them to someone and let the music do the talking. Expressing your emotions can be hard. It can be easier if you make music! Cove is trusted by doctors and therapists as a safe and secure way to look after your mental health.

The app is built on the principles of musical theory; it has 6 harmonically evolving sounds to get you started and you can build on these and play around with the tones, without having to know the ins and outs of music.

There are no right or wrong sounds for people to use or create, the aim is that people create pieces of music than resonate emotionally with them.

When you start, you choose from four base moods – playful, longing, calm, struggling. These serve as the basis for your piece of music. The display looks like water, so when you’re adding to your tune by tapping the screen, your taps appear as stones in the water – creating your own personal cove (aha).

How does it work?

Cove is like a mood journal, except instead of using words to express how you feel, you use music.

To create music, choose from six different moods – calm, struggling, longing, playful, clouded and gentle.

Once you’ve selected your mood, you can then easily add and remove different musical effects.

Store your music in a private journal to revisit at any time. Add some personal thoughts and tags.

NOTE – Cove is not a substitute for professional therapy, and not suitable for those experiencing severe distress or suicidal thoughts. If you find yourself really struggling, in the app there are helpful links to organisations who can help you. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone.

2nd April 2020

Pomodoro

Assistive Technology, Concentration, Productivity, Resources, Students, Time management

Pomodoro is a time management technique designed to minimise anxiety and maximise your efficiency.

Basically it involves 25 minutes working sessions, followed by a 3 to 5 minutes break. After each 4 Pomodoro sessions, take a longer break of about 15 to 30 minutes. This has been scientifically proven to boost work morale/efficiency as it helps to prevent you from getting burnt out on your work and becoming distracted.

It’s a great technique and in a way it rewards you for working, you know that once you’ve done 25 minutes of work you can have a 5 minute break to play on your phone or whatever you want to do. Then once you’ve done a couple of sessions you can have a longer break.

It all started from a Tomato shaped kitchen timer that the creator used when he was in University. There are a few different websites or apps you can use for the Pomodoro Technique, or even a kitchen timer if you have one. Just start by searching ‘pomodoro’ on your device app store.

20th March 2020

Noisli

Assistive Technology, Concentration, Productivity, Students, Uncategorised

Noisli allows you to improve your focus and productivity by mixing different sounds to create an environment perfect for you.

It’s worth us mentioning straight away that Noisli is free in your internet browser either at the website or as a Chrome Extension but the Android and iOS mobile apps do cost £1.99. So if you think Noisli could work for you, make sure you give it a good test using the browser based system before you think of spending money on it.

Anyway, Noisli allows you to create your own audible envrionment by mixing certain sounds together based on whatever relaxes you.

If a late night camping in the woods is your idea of heaven, turn up the sound of the log fire and the summer night, you’ll hear the crackling of the logs and the distant noise of crickets in the background. If something a bit busier would be better for you then maybe the noise of a coffee shop or a train, you can even add thunderstorm noises if you so desire. The actual sounds selection is Rain, Thunderstorm, Wind, Forest, Leaves, Water stream, Seaside, Water, Bonfire, Summer night, Fan, Train, Coffee Shop, White Noise, Pink Noise, Brown Noise.

If you create an account you can save your combinations and share them with friends, use a timer to remind yourself to take a break or use their built in distraction free text editor.

14th October 2019

Google Scholar

Assistive Technology, Referencing, Research, Research & Planning, Students

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

Put simply, it’s a Google Search just for scholarly articles.

19th June 2019

YourHour

Assistive Technology, Students, Wellbeing, Wellbeing

YourHour is a mobile addiction tracker and controller that gives useage reports and challenges to help combat mobile addiction.

YourHour is another one of our wellbeing apps, designed to help you curb smartphone addiction.

14th June 2019

HabitBull

Assistive Technology, Students, Wellbeing, Wellbeing

HabitBull is a companion app that helps you keep track of your day, break habits and set yourself routines.

HabitBull isn’t strictly ‘Digital Learning’ but it’s important to look after your wellbeing and this is a simple yet powerful tool to keep track of your day to day routines and help you break your unwanted habits.

13th June 2019

MyBib

Assistive Technology, Referencing, Referencing, Research, Students, Writing

MyBib is a simple citation tool that allows you to store references for future.

MyBib is a one-stop shop for all your citation needs. It’s clean, simple and very intuitive to use. It stands for My Bibliography.

While Cite This For Me is one of the best-known citation tools, I found MyBib so much easier to use, it comes with some nice extra features and it’s not covered in ads.

The best bit? It’s 100% free!

15th May 2019