Here is some software that we have on our student school computers.
- Windows 7 is now our standard on school computers that have the hardware required. It has a number of built in features that help students. See previous blog post about Windows 7.
- Office 2010 is now our standard software
- Windows Live Essentials is a huge improvement to the old photo editor and Movie Maker, see: http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials
- Firefox as an alternate internet browser.
- Mixcraft 5 by Aucoustica is a ‘Garageband-like’ program for Windows. See previous blog post.
- Any Video Converter (FREE) – will convert any file format to another.
- Paint.net – free painting program
- GIMP – photo editing for free
- Faststone image viewer and resizer (FREE)
- Google Earth – for exploration and the cool flight simulator
- Scratch by MIT – computer programming for students
- Sketchup 8 by Google – 3D modeling program
- FlipBoom Classic – 2D animation program
- JING – screen capture software
- Lego Digital Designer – 3D online lego designer
- YouTube Downloader – FREE software to get videos off YouTube.
- VLC Video Player – great media player, will play almost any type of video including the FLV format when you download from YouTube.
- iTunes from Apple as a music player and to connect to student’s iPods
- All The Right Type for keyboarding skills
Feedback from other educators: Which are your favourites, what software do other schools use?
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3 comments:
Great selections James. Some I haven't had time to play around with. Sounds like good Pro-D to me!
I prefer the opensource Freemake to Any Video Converter. It allows for video downloads and conversion all in one - and it is opensource.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi James,
Thanks for this list. It is interesting to see what other schools use for software. We are still on XP but will have to switch to Windows 7 at some point. I was intrigued to see that you use MixCraft 5 instead of Audacity. Do you find it to be more intuitive? Less likely to freeze?
Some other software that I have installed on our computers are:
Greenshot http://getgreenshot.org/ for making and annotating screen shots.
Format Factory http://www.formatoz.com/ for all format conversions.
Levelator http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator for leveling out audio post-production.
Ken: Thanks for the software Freemake, will test out!
Phil: You'll be surprised that Windows7 is such an easy switch as it doesn't require too much hardware increase, dual core processor with 2Gb+ of RAM is enough. For Audacity, it is a completely different category of software. Audacity is a simple music editor (cut parts, effects...) whereas Mixcraft is all that plus music composition with thousands of built in loops and effects each student can create their own composition. Try the 30 trial! Thanks for the software links!
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