...dedicated to...hmmm, we're still figuring that one out...
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The Educational Freewares of
2001 |
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All sorts of best and worst-of-the-year lists, year in review and new year prediction columns show up online around this time of year. I've done my share of them in the past with A Final Blast for 2000, The Required New Years Column: Avoiding Complacency (1999), The Last Busman's Holiday...for 1999, and The Year of Mac: Christmas Bloat and New Year's Mayhem (1998). I decided not to give Apple Computer any more free advice this year in my end of the year column, but to review some of the wealth of freewares that have appeared on the Educators' News site this year. The titles reviewed cover the gamut of possible platform combinations. Some are Mac or Windows only, while others will only work on certain Macs or with specific operating systems, and a few work on almost everything. The unifying criterion is that they must have appeared on Educators' News this year (meaning they've been introduced or updated this year), and they must be truly free. No demos, come-ons (How many times have you downloaded a "freeware," only to find out that it really isn't free?), or lites are included. Oh, yeah! It had to be a freeware I really liked and have used to make the cut for this column. For sheer volume of freeware releases, Gary Smith of PolyMath Love Software is the hands down educational freeware superstar for the Mac platform this year. Gary cranked out at least seven new releases this year. Mainly aimed at students in grades 5-8, Gary's applications are stable, educationally justifiable, and just plain fun to use. Many of the games also fit into the tough to teach category of math applications and word problems. Bag Riddles (154K) supplies hints, one at a time, in achieving a solution to either "simple" or tough math riddles. The riddle "I have 23 blocks hidden in a bag," appears as shown below. As with Gary's Pizza Party Puzzles (289K), this application appears destined for some collaborative learning in my classroom.
In Adding
Three Fractions (306K) students may select ruler or
regular fraction problems. Changing to equivalent fractions
is required but assisted. The application will also
construct a practice worksheet of similar problems as worked
in the application. Other PolyMath Love Software titles reviewed (or just listed) this year on Educators' News include: Going to School (287K); Stock Market (305K); Linear System Beams (293K); Angle Fireworks (270K); and Fraction Sticks 1.0 (214K). Gary now offers 27 excellent math freewares for download on his Free Programs page. He also has an order page for his entire collection of 250+ math programs on CD.
On days when I just came up dry for anything to post on the site with any color or pizzazz, I often turned to the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive for dazzling color photos of planets, galaxies, and nebula. While not really freeware applications, I got a lot of mileage out of the APOD photos both on Educators' News and at school.
The Read Me file lists a number of uses for anAtlas:
anAtlas is available for Macintosh only in Classic (2.2 MB) and OS X (2.4 MB) versions. The current versions are 1.5.3 and 1.5.4, respectively, but a time limited version 2.0 preview is also available. I really suspect this application won't be a freeware too much longer:-(. While it takes a bit more "doing," Windows users can access the U.S. Geological Survey imagery directly via the Microsoft TerraServer part of MSN Home Advisor. Images are limited to the United States only.
A "company" you might not normally associate with Macintosh educational freewares but should is John Schilling's StimpSoft. Both Smell-O-Mints, a periodic table, and Son of Weather Grok have obvious applications in the classroom (if your IT person hasn't blocked such stuff as Weather Grok).
Son of Weather Grok uses your internet connection to pull down current weather statistics from the NOAA station(s) of your choice. While Son of Weather Grok only functions on Power Macs, Carbon (1.2 MB), Classic (1012K), version 3.6.9 of Weather Grok, which still functions on 68K Macs, is also available.
Matthew Monroe offers the freeware Molecular Weight Calculator for Windows, version 6.0.4. The full download of the program (1.8 MB) "contains a Windows Installer MSI file to install and register each of the required files." The MWC home page also has smaller download links for those who only need the application. I've watched folks practically sweat bullets trying to make a calendar master with spreadsheets and word processors. While I don't find that task very hard, I suspect it really can be a chore for new computer users. LuckyMe Software has released a freeware answer for such calendar challenged folks in Mom's Calendar b3.0.7 for Macinstosh (Classic [564K], Carbon [692K]). Mom's Calendar creates a 640x480 pixel printable calendar to which users may add notations.
In the going, going, almost gone department, Marc Weil of Northsoft Productions has spent the last year updating his freeware gradebook, NP Grade for Macintosh, from version 1.0 to 1.5. NP Grade 1.5 is available for download in Classic (3.3 MB) and OS X (5.6 MB) versions, but the Northsoft site also advises that versions beyond 2.0 will require a $20 shareware fee.
That's pretty well it. I left out a few titles that appeared on Educators' News this year for one reason or another. If you want to see the full list, which is simply a cut and paste from the daily postings, see Freewares on Educators' News. And to the educational freeware authors, my sincere thanks. |
Affiliate Advertisers 123Inkjets.com
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Travis
East entered the educational freeware field this year with
two excellent releases. 
Last
September, Tristan Harris released 
I
used some PTO money last year to buy some cut rate photo
printing paper and began printing and displaying the
Astronomy Picture of the Day in the hallway. Kids just seem
to gravitate towards space pictures. When the pages were
rotated off the wall, we first archived them in a single
binder which is kept for student use. Recently, I started
having the kids bind the pages by the month. We keep the
photo archives on a bookshelf with other free reading
materials.
Call
me a freeware freak (and you'll be right), but I actually
flooded my kitchen one day last summer when I got lost
downloading and playing with 
In
October I downloaded and tried a new Mac OS X only freeware,
Last
week Dave Hirsch released 
Andy
Pritchard's Etchelon 
If
all of the stuff above doesn't quench your thirst for
freeware downloads, try 
I've
included SpellTools in this listing, as it is one freeware I
put on every Mac I send home with my students. While many
Mac applications have a readback function built in,
SpellTools gives the students a single interface to use
across applications. I also use the readback function with
Claris Home Page to do a final proofing of each column I
publish!
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