Free Courseware in Programming
Have you heard about Greenfoot?
If not - surf over to the Greenfoot web site and have a look. Greenfoot is a new development environment, built by the BlueJ team.
Greenfoot is great for building graphical interactive applications (such as games and simulations) very easily and quickly. In Java. And it's free.
Greenfoot is aimed at bringing programming into high schools and university entry courses, but it can really do much more than that. Have a look.
The college couterpart, and parent to this project, is Bluej. Visit the site
The Way Back Machine
Ever wonder what your school or organization's webpage looked like way back in...1997?Check out this site and find out. GFPS was a bit scary! Some of the newspaper pdf links from when I advised the CMR Stampede are there. And let this be a lesson--if you post a bad webpage, upload an unflattering photo or diss your boyfriend, it doesn't go away when you take it off the server! A good lesson to teach students. Old web content could come back to bite them in the butt come college or professional interview time.
Writing and Reading Resources
Wordle
Want students to be aware of which words they use most often in their writing? Try creating a Wordle. A cloud will form with the most used words printed larger in the cloud than the rest.
Here is a site that gives an idea on how to use a Wordle in a lesson.
Gutenberg Project
There are over 25,000 free books in the Project
Gutenberg Online Book Catalog.
A grand total of over 100,000 titles are available at Project Gutenberg Partners, Affiliates
and Resources., including audiobooks.
Another source for electronic books. Plus, qualifying students will be given a free book reader from a grant though the U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Special Education.
Primary Resources at the Library of Congress
If you would like your students to explore the world of primary resources, look no further than the library of Congress site. Students can access original documents, historical letters, newspaper articles and important charters as they gain an understanding of multiple perBest Freeware
Need a webpage creator, try out Nvu
How about a pdf creator? try free pdf maker
An excellent free paint/draw program ArtRage
Want to save a copy of a Youtube or other video? visit Keepvid.com
More next month.