Free Software for Starving Students

Software for Starving
Students
Steve C. Yuen, Ph.D.
Professor
The University of Southern Mississippi

Patrivan K. Yuen, M.A., M.Ed., M.L.S.
Technical Services/Systems Librarian
William Carey University
Steve C. Yuen & Patrivan K. Yuen, MECA Conference, Jackson, Mississippi, January 29, 2008
Mississippi,

Problems
Many schools have hardware but have very
few software tools available for teachers
and students
High cost of educational software
Lack of adequate budget to purchase
software in schools
Many students and parents can’t afford to
purchase educational software
Software piracy in schools

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A Solution
Adopt Open-Source Software or Free
Software in schools
– Free
– Reliable
– Community
– License relief. Keep students from pirating
software and violating proprietary licensing
agreements.
– Allow students, teachers, administrators, and
parents to exchange electronic documents.
– Minimize cost and allow funding to be diverted to
equipment and other programs.
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A CD-ROM created by SoftwareFor.org
Help students get free software programs
without paying the high price of commercial
software
Contain a list of best-in-class programs
Download free at www.softwarefor.org
Come with an easy-to-use interface

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Available for both Mac and Windows
platforms.
Most of the software programs in the CD-
ROM are open source and few of them are
obtained and distributed by permission.
Users are free to make copies of the
software programs, or even the whole CD-
ROM, and give them away to anyone.

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Software are arranged in 13 categories: Art
& Graphics, Astronomy & Space, Computer
Science, Games, Internet, Keyboarding,
Mathematics, Multimedia, Office, Publishing,
Security, Studying, and Utility.
The Windows version contains 41 software
programs.
The Mac version has 31 programs.

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Art & Graphics
Blender
– A suite of tools for 3D modeling, animation, rendering,
interactive creation and playback.
Inkscape
– An open source drawing tool with capabilities similar to
Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw that uses the W3C
standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG).
Paint.NET
– An image and photo manipulation software.
POV-Ray
– A 3D program that allows users to create 3D, photo-
realistic images using a rendering technique called ray-
tracing.
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Inkscape

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Paint.NET

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Astronomy & Space

Celestia
– A real-time space simulation that lets you
experience our universe in 3D.
Stellarium
– A free open source planetarium that
shows a realistic sky in 3D.

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Stellarium

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Computer Science
FileZilla
– A powerful, fast, and reliable FTP-client.
Notepad++
– A free source code editor.
Putty
– A client for running a remote session on a computer via
the SSH, Telnet, and Rlogin network protocols
Tortoise SVN
– An easy to use Revision Control / Version Control / Source
Control software for Windows.
XAMPP
– An easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL,
PHP and Perl.

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FileZilla

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Notepad++

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Games

Freeciv
– A multiplayer, turn-based strategy game.
Icebreaker
– A game to trap penguins.
SuperTux
– A classic jump-and-run sidescroller game
similar to the original SuperMario games.

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Internet
Firefox
– A fast, reliable, and customizable Web browser.
Pidgin
– A multi-protocol instant messaging client.
Thunderbird
– An email client.
uTorrent
– A program that uses the BitTorrent peer-to-peer
file-transfer protocol.

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Thunderbird

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uTorrent

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Keyboarding

Tux Typing 2
– An educational typing tutor for children
starring Tux, the Linux Penguin. Its
features include several different types of
game play and a variety of difficulty
levels.

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Tux Typing 2

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Mathematics

GeoGebra
– A dynamic geometry software.
– You can work with points, vectors,
segments, lines, conic sections, functions,
integrals, derivatives and more.

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GeoGebra

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Multimedia
Audacity
– An audio editor.
Exact Audio Copy
– A CD audio grabber that reads audio CDs.
Juice
– A podcast receiver.
VLC Media Player
– A portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats.
Wink
– A tutorial and presentation creation software.
winLame
– A program converts audio files to dozens of types, including MP3
and OGG Vorbis.

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Audacity

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Juice

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Wink

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WinLame

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Office

Dia
– A program for drawing diagrams.
OpenOffice.org
– A multi-platform office productivity suite.
– Include word processor, spreadsheet,
presentation manager, and drawing
program, with a user interface and
feature set similar to other office suites.
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OpenOffice - Writer

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OpenOffice - Calc

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OpenOffice - Impress

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OpenOffice - Draw

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OpenOffice - Base

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OpenOffice - Math

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Publishing

Scribus
– A professional page layout program
– Feature quot;press-readyquot; output and support
professional publishing features such as
CMYK color, separations, ICC color
management and PDF creation.

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Scribus

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Security

ClamWin
– An antivirus program.
KeePass
– A free/open-source password manager.
Spybot Search & Destroy
– An anti-spyware tool that detects and
removes spyware.

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ClamWin

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Spybot Search & Destroy

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Studying

JMemorize
– Manage your learning processes by using
flashcards and the famous Leitner
system.

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Utility
7-Zip
– A file archiver and compression utility.
Ant Renamer
– Mass-rename files and folders.
InfraRecorder
– A free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft
Windows.
WinDirStat
– Disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for
Microsoft Windows.

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7-Zip

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AntRenamer

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InfraRecorder

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WinDirStat

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Open Disc
A collection of high quality open
source software for Windows
The Open Disc CD-ROM contains
39 software tools in 6 categories:
– Design
– Games
– Internet
– Multimedia
– Productivity
– Utilities
www.theopendisc.com
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Resources

Free Software Foundation
– www.fsf.org
K12OS.org
– k12OS.org
Open Source Education Foundation
– www.osef.org
SourceForge.net
– sourceforge.net
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My Blog “Tech Learning”

Provide reviews
on many Open-
Source Software
and Freeware
blog.yuen.us

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The End

Questions or Comments?

Thank You for Attending Our session!

This presentation is available on the Web at:
http://www.slideshare.net/scyuen/
Mississippi,

Free Software for Starving Students

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