Free Software & Online Tools

Here are links to free software and online tools that are particularly useful for educators but can most definitely be useful for the general public.

Jing (Must download to hard drive)
Simple screen recording software.  This is a must-have.

Virtual Magnifying Glass (Must download to hard drive)
Magnifying glass that can quickly be turned on and off to use during presentations. Use it to magnify anything on your computer screen.

A website where multiple people can meet and hand-write on the page.  It works really well if everyone is on a conference call as well.  You must invite friends by e-mail.

Similar to ImaginationCubed but many more options.  You must invite friends by e-mail.

WizIQ
An easy-to-use online collaboration tool with a whiteboard.  Instructor and students must all have an account, but an account is free and easy to set up.  You can give a link to students, so they can access the session.

Chatzy
Start a chat room on the fly.

Website that allows you to shorten any URL.

TinyURL
Website that allows you to shorten any URL.

PrimoPDFdoPDFPDF Creator (Download to hard drive, and then the software will become a printer on your system.)
Tools that allow you to save any printable document as a PDF.  I prefer doPDF, because I can embed fonts.

Jarnal (Must download to hard drive.)
Software that enables electronic handwriting that can then be saved, saved as a PDF, edited, etc.  For tutorials, visit the Software Tutorials page.

Xournal (Must download to hard drive.)
Similar to Jarnal.  Built for Linux but there is an experimental version for Windows.  It feels a little more natural due to pressure sensitivity.

Cursor Attention (Must download to hard drive.)
Highlights cursor.  Great for presentations where audience must follow the cursor.  Version 1.2 is the 32-bit version

Google Tools
E-mail: E-mail account with some really cool features.
Sites: Easily create a free website.
Bookmarks: Access your favorite websites from any computer on the internet.
Docs: Work on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and save them on the internet.
etc.

Doodle
Online tool that helps with scheduling.

A website where you can send an e-mail to the future.

Graph (Must download to hard drive.)
Very easy-to-use graphing software.  Tick marks on axes can use multiples of pi.  It can graph relations, inequalities, and standard, parametric, or polar functions.  Colors, shading, dashed and solid lines are all easy to modify.

Winplot (Must download to hard drive.)
Graphing software that is more sophisticated than Graph but not quite as intuitive.  Click the Winplot link at the top of the page to download.