I'm sitting here in Indianapolis at the K12 Open Minds Conference surrounded by evangelist of free and open source software in education so I thought I would make this the theme of this week's Friday Five.
Did you know that there there is great software that is free and legal for us to use in your classroom AND even give a free copy to our students. Using free software and making it available for our
students is part of my our mission at St. Alban City School.
I could not limit it to 5 sites.... so I recommended sites around 5 categories. I can help you use any of these in your classrooms.
#1 Free Software For Primary Grades
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G Compris = free software for primary grades
gcompris.net/-Screenshots- Free Software for primary grades
Child Play by schoolsplay.org = free software for elementary education
www.schoolsplay.org/
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#2 Free Software to Make Thinking Visible (graphic organizers and mind mapping)
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CMap Tools -graphic organization
www.k12opensource.org/oss-cmap.html make thinking visual
FreeMind - free mind mapping software
freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Screenshots
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#3 Free Software for Making Podcast and other Audio Recording Needs
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Format Factory - Conversion program
format-factory.en.softonic.com/
Audacity: a free recording software
audacity.sourceforge.net/about/screenshots
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#4 Free Software for your Artistic Need
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Inkscape. a painting program that allow you to Draw Freely.
www.inkscape.org/screenshots/index.php
Tux Paint - paint program for young children
www.tuxpaint.org/screenshots/
Paint.NET - a photoshop like program
www.getpaint.net/screenshots.html
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#5 Free Software for word processing, spreadsheets, and Presentation
(for those who don't want to buy Microsoft Office)
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OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
www.openoffice.org/
NeoOffice - an open source productivity tool
www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
