Computers R Cool

On this page you will find links to free (thats right free!) software and utilities useful to educators. I’ll work on my personal open source software manifesto as the days gets shorter and colder but I couldn’t wait another minute to get this page going.

The Basics:

Operating System

Ubuntu “Linux for Human Beings” - I’ve been a big wimp and haven’t tried this yet but my friend swears by it. There are also some schools that are using it too. I like thinking about how much money this saves the schools. Read this testimony / call to action by Chris Lehmann to learn more.

Word processing, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Drawing

OpenOffice - The name gives away what this program does. I’ve been using this for three years now and haven’t found anything that it won’t do.

Graphics

Gimp - Photo editing title. Takes a minute to get used to but again it does everything I want it to.

Inkscape - Illustrating software. This software has a steep learning curve but is a lot of fun to use.

Web

NVU - Web authoring software. Great for writing HTML. Not so great as a WYSIWYG editor.

Moodle - Course Managment system. Very Cool

WordPress - Blogging software. See it in action right here.

Free Software Resources:

Free Software Foundation - I just found this site and don’t know much about it, but a good place to learn more about open source software. They also have an extensive directory of free titles.

SourceForge.net - “The world’s largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications.” Thats from their site, what more can I say.