Free Software

When I started as an LTC (Learning Technology Coordinator), it was a given that you were responsible for one of the single most expensive aspects of school resourcing. That hasn’t necessarily changed, but it’s possible now to load up your classroom computer with virtually every type of software the children will need for free. Either that, or in the world of Web 2.0, there’s an online application that will get the job done. Either way, if you really wanted to, you could say goodbye to a number of those software licences!

Internet Browsers

Internet Explorer is obviously the most used browser, but you may want something different; or you may have a Mac.

Mozilla Firefox is a free, open-source browser that has inspired several of the new features in IE version 7, like tabbed browsing. An advantage to its open-source framework is that other developers have created extensions that add functionality or incorporate other applications into the Firefox browser.

Flock is built from the Mozilla foundation, but includes social application integration, such as a Flickr tool and the ability to post to a blog through a dialog box rather than visiting the blog admin over the net.

Paint and Draw
KidPix has been a lead player in this part of the educational software market, but there’s other stuff around for nothing.

First of all, of course, there’s the Windows Paint bundled in with the OS (if you’re happy to use it), or for the Mac users there are paint and draw tools included in AppleWorks that comes with every Apple. But there are other options:

Tux Paint started as a Linux program that’s now available free for Windows and Mac as well. Not as flashy looking and less features, but it has similar tools to KidPix, costs nothing, and it may be all you need.

ArtRage is a great tool that one of my colleague LTSTs introduced me to. Also free (it does restrict you from some additional features that are available for a small cost), this program simulates the look of real artwork in a variety of media. There are a few surprise features, and it can export to different graphics formats. Something people of all ages enjoy playing with.

Hopefully in the future I’ll find the time to put more up here to save time and money.