The good news is that, with the technology available today, there is a plethora of tools available to provide numerous options for every learner. Because most of the emerging tools are free of monetary cost, because they are readily available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, and because they are easy to use, there is no excuse for teachers who do not use these tools or make them available to the learners they support.

Flypaper is a versatile presentation tool with an infinite range of potential uses by learners and teachers–to engage, represent, and express. Flypaper is easy to learn and use. It is a downloadable program for the PC, so it can be used off line when an internet connection is unavailable. Still, you can easily share your work online in the Flypaper “community”, or embed it wherever else you want to. Flypaper has made it easy to turn your presentation into a flash file, and you can even upload it directly to Youtube from within the application.

In a Flypaper presentation, you can include virtually anything you choose–text, graphics, audio, video, action buttons, hyperlinks, etc. I particularly like the fact that it is convenient for the presenter to add voice narration. A presentation may be a single page, or it may contain multiple “chapters” with as many pages as you want.

Flypaper encourages you to download “models” created by other users, and to use these models as templates for your own work. Flypaper offers tutorials for new users, as well as user forums. There is also a well organized 114 page user manual in pdf format.

I’ve embedded an example of a Flypaper presentation here that merely hints at the potential of the application.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

Today I’m featuring a remarkable resource that has been made available to the world by a school in Courtenay, British Columbia. This online library is a tribute to the vision, talent and effort of Stewart Savard, the school’s librarian. It so happens that Courtenay is where I live, and it’s an honour to know Stew, and to get to work with him on occasion.

Courtenay Middle School Library (online resource) The growing collection of digital resources housed on this Vancouver Island middle school’s website is truly remarkable. In addition to some resources that you can download, there’s an extensive and well organized catalogue of links to some of the very best online resources available anywhere.

There is much of value here to middle school learners and their teachers everywhere. By virtue of the multiple ways that users can access material on the site, and because of way the library identifies the reading level of the material, the library is built firmly on UDL principles. (UDL= Universal Design for Learning)

Downhill skiing has provided the model for rating the degree of reading challenge for each catelogued item, as illustrated below:

Material is organized by unit under main subject headings and sub-headings. For example, under Social Studies, there are four main sub-headings: History; Current Events; Geography; Research Topics. Under History, you then find the following units: Ancient China; Ancient Egypt; Ancient Greece; Early Humans; Indian Empires; Mesopotamia; Middle Ages; Mongol Empire; Renaissance; Roman Empire. For each of these units, resources are organized under a helpful Table of Contents.

There’s a terrific Free Audio Book collection, with links to audio files of recorded human readers. There’s also a collection of novels available for “Assisted Reading“. The latter includes text files that can be downloaded for use with e-text reading software, as well as some KESI files that open in Kurzweil 3000. KESI files are available to download for some of the material catalogued under other subject headings as well.

There is much more at Courtenay Middle School’s online library, but no description I offer would do it justice. It needs to be explored and used to be fully appreciated.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

PowerPoint has become ubiquitous in schools, but in my experience it remains under utilized by teachers. One of the biggest factors is that most teachers lack the time to create PowerPoint resources for use with their classes. Today’s featured resource offers some helpful shortcuts. Kudos to Jefferson County Schools for sharing this tremendous resource. This one’s filed on my Content & Curriculum page.

Jefferson County Schools–PowerPoint Collection This is an extensive repository of PowerPoint presentations that have been prepared by teachers, and made available for download by other educators. Quality varies, but almost all that I have looked at are quite good.

Presentations are organized by subject (The Arts, Language Arts, Library Science, Math, Science, Social Studies). Each subject area is divided into the two broad categories of K-5 and 6-12.

A disclaimer on the site states, “The content of these presentations are provided by teachers and are presumed to be in the public domain.” This means that the presentations may be used as they are or modified as required to suit specific circumstances.

Since free PowerPoint viewers are available from Microsoft, it isn’t even necessary to have a full version of PowerPoint in order to make use of the presentations. There is great potential for making use of these presentations with students who have only single-switch access to a computer.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Collaborative authoring is the essence of the wiki. I believe the concept, the process, and the product deserve to be embraced by educators at all levels. If not, it is our students who lose out. Today’s resource from the Wikimedia Foundation is a great example of what can be done. I’m filing Wikijunior under Content & Curriculum.

Wikijunior (online resource) Wikijunior is a “child” of Wikibooks, which describes itself as “a collection of free content textbooks you can edit.” The parent site boasts 23,402 modules in over 1000 books. This is a truly amazing free resource with incredible potential.

Wikijunior is targeting children aged 8 to 11 for a series of open content books under three main headings: The Natural World; Our World of People; A World of Discovery and Innovation. So far, Wikijunior has completed and published one title–Big Cats as part of The Natural World series. If this book is a sign of things to come, Wikijunior has a promising future. Big Cats is beautifully illustrated and offers a wealth of well organized and carefully written information.

Big Cats is available in three formats, pdf, html, and hard copy. Although the print version of Big Cats costs $10 to download and the bound paperback is $20.53, the pdf version is a free download and the html version is freely available online. For individuals with reading challenges, the pdf and html versions work well with the reading aids and study tools offered by such programs as Kurzweil 3000.

Wikijunior says a second title is currently being “readied for publication”. Solar System will be part of A World of Discovery and Innovation. Eight other titles have been approved and are in process: How Things Work; The Elements; Dinosaurs; Bugs; South America; Languages; Kings and Queens of England; Ancient Civilizations.

As the Wikibooks community creates educational resources for children to use, it also offers exciting opportunities for educators and their students to be involved in the creation of the books. Be sure to check out “How to Help” at the Wikijunior website.

Here are a few screen shots from the pdf version of Big Cats. (Click to enlarge and use your browser’s back button if you wish to return to the blog. You may get a clearer view of the enlarged screenshot if you click on it again in the enlarged view.)

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here’s an online library of helpful resources for educators and for students of any age. I’ve listed this on Content & Curriculum.

Utah Education Network (online resource) This is a well organized repository of resource links for educators and students–from Kindergarten to post-secondary. The site is comprehensive in its scope. The main categories: K-12 Educators; K-12 students; Higher Ed. Faculty; College Students; Adult Education. Resources are searchable, and the content is organized intuitively. Material can be searched by both grade level and subject area.

Most helpful of all, from my perspective, is the collection of free online interactive student activities (”Student Interactives” under “K-12 Students” ). There is much here to enrich and re-enforce virtually every area of the curriculum. Most linked online activities are created in either Flash or Shockwave. The activities have been chosen carefully and they are all of high quality. Take a look at the following screen shots to get a better idea of some of the content and how it is organized and presented. (Click on thumbnail to enlarge.)

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here’s a very helpful resource for those who need visual supports as they learn to read and write. This one is filed on the Content & Curriculum Page.

SymbolWorld.org (online resource) This is a website that has been created to offer free content for users of Widget Rebus Symbols. The entire site has been constructed using Writing With Symbols 2000 (2.6) and Communicate: In Print 2. SymbolWorld includes a variety of curriculum-based learning activities organized under the following headings: Science & Nature; Life Skills; Cooking; Interactive; Humanities; Literacy; Different Languages; Current Affairs. There are separate sections for stories and personal contributions. SymbolWorld also hosts a monthly online magazine called eLive. eLive offers a collection of current event news articles as well as film reviews, puzzles, recipes, jokes, etc. A pdf version of eLive is available for download, and eLive is archived with access to editions dating back to 2002. The entire site is easy to navigate with large easily accessible buttons.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

A significant number of students I have supported in special education would be intrigued by today’s feature. I file most calendar resources on my Productivity page. This one clearly belongs with Content & Curriculum.

Calendar Magic (downloadable program) There are numerous free calendar applications, but this one is unique. Calendar Magic offers calendars in Gregorian, Chinese, Hebrew, Julian, and Persian formats. This calendar enables you to go back to virtually any date in history. It’s easy to go back and find the day of the week on which you were born, or to discover how many days you have lived.

If you need to know the date and time of an equinox, solstice, or moon phase in any year between 1582 and 3000, then this is the calendar for you. Also, if you need to know when religious festivals or other days of observance occur, Calendar Magic will help you with that.

Of course, Calendar Magic can give you reminders for current events such as birthdays or anniversaries, even an audible reminder for something that is about to happen immediately. Other features include a Geometry calculator and a mathematical Expressions Calculator. This program has been developed by a company called Eurosoft, and they continue to update it. The latest release was on Aug. 11, 2006.

The program is available from Eurosoft.

This program runs in Windows.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here’s an online resource with much to offer for teens as well as for anyone involved in working with them both in and out of school. This one’s on my Content & Curriculum page, but it is a resource that can also enhance productivity.

TeenSpace – Internet Public Library for Teens (online resource) The part of the Internet Public Library that is geared toward teens is a truly amazing free resource for teens and those who support them. This website offers a large and well organized collection of valuable links that point teens to sources of relevant information–both academic and otherwise. The site is uncluttered and ad-free.

To give some idea of the range of material that is catalogued, the home page features the following “Hot Topics”: School and Homework Help; A+ Writing; Graphic Novels Guide; Poetry Wiki; FAEQs (Frequently Asked Embarrassing Questions); Procrastinator. The home page’s “Directory” consists of the following headings: Clubs and Organizations; Reading and Writing; Health and Sexuality; School and Homework Help; Money and Work; Sports, Entertainment and Arts; Technology. This site and many of its component pages deserve to be bookmarked.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Anyone involved in teaching social studies at any level from K to 12 should be familiar with this extensive online resource. I’ve put it up on my Content & Curriculum page.

National Geographic Education (online resource) Although this site is ad-supported, it is an excellent source of otherwise free high quality educational resources from National Geographic. National Geographic Xpeditions is a comprehensive set of lesson plans and activities for K-12 referenced to the US National Geography Standards, as established by National Geographic. The lesson plans are well organized and clearly laid out. The site also offers an extensive collection of map and photo resources. Among the numerous other features on the website is a very helpful one labeled “Homework Help” for students.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.If you haven’t yet checked out the Internet Public Library, it is a marvellous resource for individuals of all ages. I am highlighting here the part of the Internet Public Library that has been created specifically for kids. This one is listed on my Content & Curriculum page.

Kidspace @ The Internet Public Library (online resource) is a huge repository of information and resources for children. Essentially, this site is a very well organized collection of links to other web sites. The main headings are: Reference; Our World; Computers & Internet; Health & Nutrition; Reading Zone; Math & Science; Art & Music; Sports & Recreation; Fun Stuff. Kidspace itself is ad-free and the site is clean and uncluttered. The sites that are linked are generally of very high quality, but they are not all ad-free. Kidspace provides links to both content and skill-building sources.

In addition to its “Subject Collections”, Kidspace offers what it calls “Features”. These include: Science Fair, Stately Knowledge, Learning HTML, Orca Search, Poison Prevention, Culture Quest, Story Hour, US Presidents. The site is searchable, and for children under 13, there is an “Ask a question” feature. The site says it requires 3 days to answer questions that are submitted.

The Internet Public Library is sponsored by The Regents of the University of Michigan.