Khan Academy “supplies a free online collection of over 2,000 videos on mathematics, history, finance, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and economics.” - Wikipedia-
It is probably the most useful website for school children. Every parent and school age child should bookmark this website. If Bill Gates is using it, I don’t see why other parents are not benefiting this valuable resources.
Showcases fascinating notes, letters, telegrams, memos and more from a variety of people, including celebrities and regular citizens.
GrindTV in Association with Yahoo’s action sports portal, GrindTV.com is the world’s leading destination for action sports videos, pictures and information about the skate, surf, snow, and moto lifestyle.
Sells a complete curriculum in six core subjects (language arts, math, history, science, art, and music) for kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Freebase blog: Mining knowledge from Wikipedia: Announcing WEX “…Through the efforts of Colin Evans, Al Marks and several other Metaweb developers the Wikipedia Extraction (WEX) system became a reliable, repeatable process to normalize the Wikipedia corpus into a simple, manageable data set…”
Freebase is a large collaborative knowledge base. It is an online collection of structured data harvested from many sources, including individual ‘wiki’ contribution. Freebase aims to create a global resource which allows people to access common information more effectively. It is developed by the American software company Metaweb and has been running publicly since March 2007. Freebase data is available for use under a Creative Commons “attribution” license, and an API, rdf endpoint, and database dump are provided for programmers. Google’s News Timeline includes media information from Freebase
The Free High School Science Textbook (FHSST) project is free project that builds and distributes free Mathematics Grades: 10, 11 and 12 and Physical Science: Grades: 10, 11 and 12. You can download their text books from here: FHSST
Here are free software that you should try using tme if you are not already.
Ubuntu (Free user friendly Linux Operating System for the desktop + it comes with almost all the applications you may need such as word processors, media players, image editors, text editors, CD burning tools and load of other applications)
Ubuntu Server Edition (Free and fast powerful enterprise server)
Windows ($$ This is not free Microsoft Windows has discounted priced Operating Systems and Applications for schools)
AVG (Provides free Anti-Virus edition) -Linux and Windows versions available
Avast! (Provides free Anti-Virus edition as well)
Microsoft Security Essentials (This is free Windows security tools from Microsoft. This enough for protecting your home windows based PC. Remember to update frequently)
Spybot-S&D (free Spybot Search & Destroy is one of the best anti-spyware software available today.)
T r u e C r y p t (Free disk encryption software for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X)
Firefox (Mozila Firefox is one of the best free internet browsers available)
Chrome (Chrome is free internet browser from Google)
Internet Explorer ($$ comes with Windows operating Systems which is not free)
OpenOffice (free word processing applications similar to Word, Excel and PowerPoint)
Notepad++ (Free text editor similar to notepad)
7-Zip (Free File Archive and compression tool)
Sumatra (Windows Only) free, open-source PDF reader for Windows.
Local : Thunderbird is a free email system offering intelligent spam filters, built-in RSS reader, quick search, and more. It is a local (rather than a web-based) email application that is powerful yet easy-to-use.
Web based : Gmail (free web based email account accessible from any computer with internet connection)
Yahoo! (free unlimited web based email account accessible from any computer with internet connection)
Pidgin (Free (Linux, Windows, Unix) chat application that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and many others)
VLC (free multimedia framework, player and server)
Paint.NET (Free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. A good alternative to Photoshop.)
Gimp Cross platform graphic software for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
Graphic Converter Graphics software that allows users to open, view, resize, and edit in multiple images formats.
Free Download Manager: The FDM accelerates downloads by splitting files into sections and then downloading them simultaneously. As a result download speed increases many folds. If you lose connection you can continue where you left off saving valuable time and money for people with low quality connectivity and expensive internet such as common in Africa.
BitTorrent (peer-to-peer)
µTorrent (Linux, Windows, Mac) A free tiny BitTorrent for peer-to-peer download and upload.
FileZilla (free FTP software solution software (Client & Server) is available.)
Software Utilities
Gparted (A free graphical partition editor for creating, reorganizing and deleting disk partitions)
VirtualBox (VirtualBox lets you create virtual machines for enterprise as well as home use)
Content Management Software: Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. Use Drupal to build everything from personal blogs to enterprise applications. Thousands of add-on modules and designs let you build any site you can imagine.
Library Management: Koha Library circulation, cataloging, and acquisitions system
Course Management System: Moodle Course Manegement System (CMS), it is a free web application that educators can use to create effective online courses.
If you have a program that doesn’t run in native Windows 7, try:
“Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices — and how we feel about the choices we make. At TEDGlobal, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.” -Ted
Ashlee Vance of The New York Times article: $200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math. highlighted a very useful free Textbook sites that I was not aware existed. I think it warants a mention here at the Joornaal.
“Curriki is more than your average website; we’re a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world. Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them. …”
”We preserve the best of the old – books by leading experts, rigorously reviewed and developed to the highest standards. Then we flip it all on its head. Our books are free online. We offer convenient, low-cost choices for students – print-on-demand softcovers, audio books and chapters, self-print options, and more. Our books are open for instructors to modify and make their own (for their own course — not for anybody else’s). Our books are the hub of a social learning network where students learn from the book and each other.”
”CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the “FlexBook,” CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning.”
Study Hacks: “explores strategies for building a life that is both remarkably accomplished and remarkably enjoyable. Its primary audience is students, but at least half the content is non-student specific, and the site enjoys readers of all ages.
Study Hacks is run by Cal Newport, an MIT postdoc and author of the popular advice guides How to Become a Straight-A Student and How to Win at College. His new book, How to Be a High School Superstar”
If you’re an existing user:
Settings->Mail/Contacts/Calendar->Your Mail Account
If you’re using Yahoo! Mail or Yahoo! Calendar for the first time:
Settings->Mail/Contacts/Calendar->Add Account->Yahoo->Enter your account info and click next.
Zattoo is real TV on your PC– and it’s absolutely free! It’s the football game as you chat, the news as you email, and your favorite soap as you pay your bills. Zattoo is also TV when you don’t have a TV – it’s the channels you want, when you want, where you want.
Zattoo is a proprietary peer-to-peer Internet Protocol Television system with current focus on European channels, licensed content, and Digital Rights Management. It is developed by researchers and programmers based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with corporate offices in Ann Arbor and Zurich. The player is based on H.264, and is Mac OS X, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista compatible. It needs a minimum downstream bandwidth of 1 Mbit/s (2 Mbit/s for HiQ channels) on the client side.
You can always find the best available fare on specific destination if you know how. Here is what you need to know.
You don’t have the luxury to check every airline for cheap ticket and you cannot afford to hire travel agent to do this for you. No problem, welcome to the world of travel aggregators. These travel aggregator website will search the best airfares available, and will do it for you for free. These are my favorites, give a shot.
Kayak Farechase Sidestep Mobissimo Bing Travel
Momondo Fly.Com Vayama CheapOair (This is not an aggregator but we like their best deals)
Ken Robinson has written numerous books, most recently “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.” This talk explores ways to connect peoples’ natural aptitudes with their personal passions to achieve at their highest levels in education and business. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his outstanding achievements in education and the arts.
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Academic Earth Org.: Online degrees and video courses from leading universities. If you are looking free video lectures and college courses from the world’s top scholars take a look at Academic Earth Org.
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“Our goal at TeacherTube.com is to provide an online community for sharing instructional teacher videos. Upload your lesson plan videos or watch student video lessons at our website.”
(3) Classroom20.com, the social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and Social Media in education.
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Lectures online on computer science, mathematics, physics and more.
(5) HowStuffWorks is a commercial edutainment website that was founded by Marshall Brain with the goal of giving its target audience an insight into the way in which many things work. The site uses various media in its effort to explain complex concepts, terminology and mechanisms, including photographs, diagrams, videos and animations, and articles written in language that is designed to be easy enough to be understood by the average layperson. A documentary television series with the same name also premiered in November 2008 on the Discovery Channel.
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The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a national organization that advocates for 21st century readiness for every student. As the United States continues to compete in a global economy that demands innovation, P21 and its members provide tools and resources to help the U.S. education system keep up by fusing the three Rs and four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation). While leading districts and schools are already doing this, P21 advocates for local, state and federal policies that support this approach for every school.
(7) BrainPOP is an educational website with hundreds of short Flash-based movies for students in grades K-12 about mathematics, technology, health, science, social studies, arts & music, and English. Most of the videos feature the site’s recurring characters, Tim and Moby. The site is owned by FWD Media, Inc., based in New York.
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Podcasts for and by teachers and educators. Hear professionals discuss education, students podcast from their classroom, and help with teaching specific subjects like science, math, or English.
(9) VideoLectures.NET is a free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science. The portal is aimed at promoting science, exchanging ideas and fostering knowledge sharing by providing high quality didactic contents not only to the scientific community but also to the general public.
(10) JOORNAAL: A place to find things that are useful, practical and informative.
“BugMeNot is an internet service that provides usernames and passwords to let Internet users bypass mandatory free registration on websites. Started in August 2003 by an anonymous person, later revealed to be Guy King, it aims to allow Internet users to access websites that have registration walls without the requirement of compulsory registration. This came in response to the increasing number of websites that request such registration.”
Posted in Tools
You have all sorts of files and you want to convert between them. Look no further than Zamzar. Don’t ask me what Zamsar means but they do damn job of converting all kinds of files types online for free. We tested it and it is rock solid. Give a try.
The web sites that offer Free Full Length Movies online, the newly launched movies-links.tv must be the top of the list. “ provides links to other sites on the Internet (DivX host sites, supernovatube.com, megavideo.com, myspace.com, tudou.com, veoh.com, youku.com, youtube.com, and others.)”. Similar sites include Hulu.com Joox.net Speedcine.com Filmhill.com Movie-forumz.org Letmewatchthis.com Icefilms.info Milledrive.com
