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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.

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

Today, I’m looking at another incredible resource that benefits countless people around the world. I find it inspiring that such a high quality and valuable resource is produced and presented to the world by a community of dedicated volunteers.

LibriVox (online resource) The mission of the folks at LibriVox is the “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain”. The ultimate goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. This has resulted in an extensive, and rapidly growing, collection of books that have been read aloud and recorded by volunteer readers.

The audio files are available for download from the LibriVox website. There are three format options for each selection–64kbps mp3, 128 kbps mp3 files, or ogg vorbis. There is a separate digital file for each chapter of a book. (In the case of Shakespeare’s plays, there is a separate file for each act; and it is noteworthy that at least some of the plays are presented by entire casts of readers.)

I downloaded and sampled several files at random. In every instance, the quality of both the reading and the recording was excellent.

The LibriVox website has been designed to make it easy to locate any work in the collection. There is a convenient search engine which lets you search by title, author, category, genre, status (complete, in-progress, etc.), language, and reader. You can browse the entire collection, which is listed alphabetically. Or, you can browse one of the four sub-sections of the catalogue: fiction; poetry; non-fiction; dramatic works.

If you wish to keep up with what is happening at LibriVox, there are several options for RSS subscription. Of course, LibriVox would also welcome your contribution if you were to volunteer.

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The purpose of this blog is to highlight free downloadable programs and online resources of good quality that may be of value to educators and their students, especially those involved in special education.

Why, oh why do so many folks persist in using Internet Explorer?!? New add-ons that make Firefox invaluable as an educational tool, and that make it ever more accessible, just keep rolling out. Firefox is a wonderful illustration of the powerful potential of open source code; and HyperWords is a brilliant new add-on for Firefox. (Firefox add-ons are what used to be known as Firefox extensions.)

HyperWords (Downloadable Firefox Add-on) Once Hyperwords is activated, whenever you double-click on any word on a web page, a pop-up menu appears. This highly configurable menu offers an extensive range of options for the word. A partial list of these options includes: dictionary definitions or encyclopedia articles; searches; translations; unit conversions; maps. It is noteworthy that all menu commands can be activated with keyboard shortcuts.

Hyperwords comes with a tool-bar that installs on the main Firefox toolbar, but I did not find this helpful. It was easy to uninstall it by going to the Tools Menu, selecting Add-0ns, going to Hyperwords and hitting the Options button. This button opens the door to numerous ways of personalizing Hyperwords.

The folks at The HyperWords Project have put together the following helpful 1-minute demo video:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ECehydgZ2kU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

It is worth noting that HyperWords is by far the easiest Firefox extension that I’ve ever installed. All you do is go to their website (in Firefox, of course) click on the button that says “Activate HyperWords”, and then follow the on-screen prompts.

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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.)

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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.)

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Superkids (online resource) This is an ad-supported site that reviews educational software titles. The links for these are in a red-bordered box on the right side of the page, however, under the heading “Free – Superkids Games & Tools“. Here you will find numerous worthwhile free resources that are organized in the following categories: Vocabulary Builders; Superkids Math Worksheets; Superkids Time Worksheets; Famous Quote of the Day; Logic Games; Studying for the SATs?.

You can play hangman online using terms from Shakespeare, Geography, Science, and various other subject areas. There are also online logic games such as Battleships, Checkers, Towers of Hanoi, etc. Super Kids “Brain Food” offers intriguing mental challenges.

For teachers, it is probably Super Kids’ “Worksheet Creator” that is most valuable. You can generate printable math worksheets and customize them in numerous ways. For example you can create multiplication worksheets offering practice in basic or advanced multiplication. You can create worksheets with horizontal problems or just with time tables. You may choose the minimum and maximum value of numbers to be multiplied, and whether or not to use negative numbers or decimals. In addition to worksheets for basic computation, you can generate worksheets to practice telling time, order of operations, fractions, percentages, greater than/less than, odd or even, rounding, averages, exponents, factorials, and prime numbers.

Superkids offers the option of creating answer sheets for the worksheets you make, and it provides helpful answers to frequently asked questions about such issues as printing, increasing font size, etc.

Screenshots (Click to enlarge)

Today’s featured resource is truly free–free of charge, ad-free, and free of distracting clutter. The Literacy Center, however, depends on donations from users. Although I promote free resources, I have no hesitation in recommending donations to this site if you find it of value and are able to help. For obvious reasons, this one is on the Content & Curriculum page.

Literacy Center (online resource) This is a high quality interactive online resource designed to facilitate development of basic literacy and numeracy skills. Learning modules consist of carefully designed and research-based flash activities. The developers of this site indicate they have used a modified Montessori approach to the teaching of reading. Not only is this site free of charge for users, it is ad-free and completely free of distracting clutter. All activities are available in English, French, Spanish and German.

Screenshots (click to enlarge)

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Here is a sophisticated reference tool from Sequence Publishers that is both practical and versatile. It’s hard to believe that it is absolutely free!

TheSage English Dictionary and Thesaurus (downloadable program and online resource) TheSage is an online dictionary as well as an integrated dictionary and thesaurus as a downloadable program. The online version of TheSage provides access only to the definitions database. This can be accessed at http://www.sequencepublishing.com/thesageonline.php

As a standalone program, TheSage offers not only definitions but examples of words being used in context as well as access to an impressive thesaurus. There are multiple search and reference features. The collection of vocabulary is extensive, and the developers indicate that it is growing. Only legitimate terms are included. The customizable tabbed interface is clean with a clear presentation of information. One helpful feature is easy access to your ongoing history of word searches.

Once opened, TheSage can run from the system tray for convenient access. Or, you can choose to run it “always on top”. TheSage can be used directly from within most applications (Word, IE, Firefox, etc.) to look up words. There is a useful help file to enable users to learn the program’s various features. On the whole, this software seems to be of unusually high quality. Download the program and find out more at http://www.sequencepublishing.com/index.html

This program runs in Windows.

Screenshot of TheSage Program (click to enlarge)

Screenshot of TheSage Online (click to enlarge)

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.

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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.