Software

Here are some links to some really useful software for classroom and personal use. Most is freeware.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
[|The ABC of FOSS ware] [|Sourceforge Open Education Disc Download 10.01] Free and Open Source Software for Windows |available for schools] [|Open source software for Macs] [|OpenOffice native for MacOS] List of recommended freeware for student use form Bruce Fuda's Blog

Learning Games and Software
Tuxmath is a freeware arcade game that helps kids practice their math facts. The main goal is to make it effective and fun! Tux Typing is an educational typing tutor for kids starring Tux, the Linux penguin. This educational game comes with two different games for practicing your typing, and having a great time doing it. Scratch is a programming language for everyone. Create interactive stories, games, music and art - and share them online. [|Geogebra] Geometry program that can show graphical and algebraic input. Perfect for graphing and geometry exercises in Mathematics and related subjects. For Mac and PC

Microsoft Office
The Track changes facility in Word should not be underestimated as a tool to allow collaboration. A simple guide for Office 2003 can be found here. [|Track Changes.doc] Here is a document for Office 2007 [|Track Changes.doc]

Microsoft Excel
Here is a resource that allows students to learn Excel in a self-paced environment Click > Save > Open > Extract All Files. The file you need to open to start is //**Index**//

Photoshop
Couldn't find the cheat sheet for the Short Cuts as promised, so have had to re-make it. Here it is.

Sound and Audio
[|Audacity] Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. Available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. It is particularly popular for producing podcasts. This guy says his program is like GarageBand for Windows

Tools & Utilities
[|AVG Anti-Virus] AVG is an uncomplicated freeware anti virus program designed for your home and office computers. [|Check URL] CheckURL is a handy freeware tool used to validate your web site's links. [|Exe Learning] Open Source authoring application made for creating SCORM courses etc for teachers and lecturers which are Moodle compatible but is just as handy for Digital Portfolios. No specific web authoring skills required. Resources authored in eXe can be exported in IMS Content Package, SCORM 1.2, or IMS Common Cartridge formats or as simple self-contained web pages. [|Hot Potatoes] The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. [|Mindmapping software by IMHC CMap] you can [|download] it free. See also [|Adrian Bruce's mindmapping page] for more great ideas. [|Freemind] mindmapping software [|Wisdom Screenhunter] ScreenHunter is a completely free screen capture software that allows you to easily take screenshots. [|Zamzar] - Free online file conversion tool. Change your video from one file format to another without needing to download any software.

Graphics, Painting, Drawing & Multimedia
[|Alice] Create an 3D animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web with a drag-and-drop interface. [|Artrage] Paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. [|Be Funky] Includes digital media tools such as Cartoonizer and Unvatar that let you become an instant artist. Great fro creating alternate avatars. [|Clay Animator] Stop Motion animation [|Google Sketch-up]Developed for the conceptual stages of design, Google SketchUp is a powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool. Inkscapeis an open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. [|Irfanview] IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative freeware graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista**.** It supports a huge variety of graphic file formats and allows the user to modify, resize images amongst many ther very useful functions. [|Monkey Jam] Stop Motion animation (Beta) [|One Motion] Free online sketch and paint, easy save function. Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for windows pc [|Pencil] Free, open source animation/drawing software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Create traditional hand-drawn animations using both bitmap and vector graphics. [|Photostory] Bring still photos to life with this visual 'story creation' tool. [|Pixlr] a free online site that is similar to Photoshop and allows you to create, manipulate and save images without needing to download any software [|Phun] Free and fabulous 2D Physics creation software (currently in beta) [|Sam Animation]Stop Motion animation software from Tuffs University [|Scratch] Scratch is a new programming language (ages 8 and up) that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art then share them on the web. [|Spore Creature Creator] Make whatever you can imagine with easy Creator tools. Create and guide your unique creature on an epic journey of discovery. [|TuxPaint] Excellent freeware painting and drawing program for primary school children. Also includes stamps which can be downloaded separately. [|Photostory 3.0] (by Microsoft) is free and helps you easily animate your still images, add music, effects and voice narration to make a simple movie.

media type="custom" key="3898451"