OpenOffice as substitute for Microsoft 2007

OpenOffice is a free, open source software suite which provides virtually the same productivity tools as Microsoft Office 2007. The software uses the familiar menus structures of the Microsoft 2003 Office suite. In May 2009 the OpenOffice version 3.1 was released. For students on a tight budget, this is an easy and legal way to get productivity software for completing assignments.

The "hitch" is that for best compatibility, everyone should save their documents in the 2003 "Compatibility" mode. At this time, instructors should do this anyway as not to disenfranchise students using older computer systems and software.

OpenOffice Ninja is a site with articles to help users of OpenOffice get the most utility from the software.

Inkscape - open source drawing program

Inkscape is an open source drawing program available on SourceForge.
What GIMP is to Photoshop, Inkscape is to Illustrator.

Tuxmagazine has an "Introdcution to Inkscape" (pdf) which helps new users get started.
Additional tutorials are available from Inkscape, InkscapeTutorials, and a step-by-step lesson in how to create a logo with arched text is available at Sixthings.

Inkscape is available in multiplatform (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux) and is also available in a portable version to run off a USB memory drive.
There is even a plug-in which assists in creating 2-D animation.

More FREE Software for College Students

Here are a few sites with recommendations on FREE software for college students.

College Crunch Free Software Guide - descriptions and screenshots
Campus Grotto - simple list of links
Microsoft DreamSpark - free development software to highschool and college students
Bill Mullins Blog on Best Free Software - links and descriptions
PortableApps.com - Free software that runs from a USB Flash Drive
Make Use Of Portable Software - 100 portable applications for a USB Flash Drive

SCORM-Compliant Content Editors for Course Design

SCORM is an acronym for Sharable Content Object Reference Model.

Connexions - Rice University (cnx.org)
OpenLearn - The Open University
SoftChalk (commercial product)
uDuTu Online Course Authoring (Moodle Plugin)
eLearning XHTML editor (exe) - open source (creating new styles)
Reload Editor 2004
Xerte - University of Nottingham (open source)
Microsoft Learning Essentials for Office 2007
CourseLab

8 Free Technologies

Welcome to the new blog site!
I'm hoping to do weekly updates on how to use technology in online education; however, I will use the disclaimer that this will be published "when you least suspect it!"

The nature of this site will be to share strategies and observations for using technology in the support of online and hybrid courses. The site will discuss pedagogy, instructional design, technology management, and assessment design. It will also showcase some super-cool, or super-cheap (eh... FREE!) technologies that students and faculty can use for creating and posting content.

Eight FREE technologies

What price is better than free? Here are eight technologies that you and your students might explore.

• www.blogger.com - this site. Create and manage your own blog.
• www.youtube.com - Upload and view videos online. Recently purchased by GOOGLE (Oct. 06), and utilizes a very simple interface for new users.
• www.google.com/intl/en/options/ - Google provides FREE online document and spreadsheet applications; these are great for group projects in which all users can edit the same source material (and there are saved revisions, in case a poorly made edit deletes important content).
• www.sourceforge.net - Look for AUDACITY (multi-track audio editing to create your own music) and GIMP (PhotoShop clone). Sourceforge.net is a site featuring OPEN SOURCE software - which is software that is free and editable. Some is junk, some is great, but Audacity and Gimp are AWESOME!
• www.skype.com - free voice over IP and voice-conferencing software. Modest expense if you wish to dial to land-lines.
• www.openoffice.org - free business productivity suite that is a virtual clone of Microsoft Office (even allows you to read/save in Microsoft file formats).
• www.mozilla.org - free, open source Internet browser FIREFOX allows "extensions" that greatly enhance the abilities of the browser. Extensions include programming and testing, calculators and utilities, page editing, RSS feeds, etc. Too many categories to mention here. Also check out SeaMonkey - which is a new browser, email client, and web page editor suite.
• www.flickr.com - Allows you to upload and edit photos plus link to them from other pages (like your blog).

Thanks,

James