Free Tools
Free Textbooks!
That's right, FREE TEXTBOOKS! These may not be the same textbooks used in your classes, but they may serve as additional resources in your learning.
OpenStax is a collection of free textbooks in many subjects.
LibreTexts is a platform that allows instructors to reorganize and edit existing free textbooks. We are using LibreTexts for this class! You can select the content along the top to explore books. Select "Bookshelves" to see the textbooks for each course type.
OER Commons is a search tool for free textbooks.
Free Media!
New York Times (free for LPC students) Because you should be more informed about the world around us, check out this world-renown news source. You have free access as an LPC student!
NPR Podcasts Here are just a few of some of my favorites:
TED Radio Hour
CodeSwitch
Planet Money
All Things Considered
Other Podcasts of interest:
The Learner Lab - A Growth Mindset Podcast. "Each episode we focus on one topic that can help you become a better learner. We do our best to keep it short, useful, and engaging. Whenever possible we bring in the experts to share their research and work."
Free Entertainment!
Project Gutenberg is an online library of eBooks. "You will find the world's great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired." Free eBooks from contemporary authors are self-published on the companion site Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing.
LibriVox is an online library of audiobooks, similar to Project Gutenberg in that books are in the public domain.
Local libraries! These are great resources for free entertainment. Books, music, videos! A lot of content is online through the Libby app. You just need a library card. Check out your local library to see if you can obtain a card. The San Francisco Library has a lot of online content and you don't need to live in SF, you only need to be a California Resident! (Unfortunately right now they are limiting access to SF residents due to COVID. Hopefully once the pandemic subsides, the libraries can return to LPC for the annual library card drive!)
LPC Library! There are some great resources here, not just for your classes, but also for your entertainment!
Free Resources to use in Classrooms
A Collection of FREE apps, calculators, websites, and helpful information for use in your classes! These are intended for instructors and students.
If you know of others that you've used, please let me know! I would love to add to this list.
Free calculators (any math class)
Desmos has an excellent “Test Mode” for IPhone that I have allowed students to use in classes. They are working on an Android version, but it is in Beta testing. The Iphone app can serve as a standard, scientific, or graphing calculator, and it locks the phone so you cannot open other apps while in the Test Mode, until you “end test”, then you can show your instructor the time elapsed when they turn in their exam.
Make sure to ask your instructor if this is allowable before you use it.
Free Spreadsheets (Math 40)
Google Sheets: Through their Zonemail account, students have access to Google Drive and all the Google apps (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc, as well as Sites and others).
MS Excel: Students have FREE access to MS Office., you just need your LPC email address.
Random Generators (Math 40)
Random.org: There are a TON of other random things on this website - rolling any number of dice, creating number arrays that do not have repeats and others. It uses atmospheric noise instead of a pseudo-random generator!
Card Deck: One or two shuffled decks for flipping virtual cards
Spinning Wheel: This site has a spinner that can be customized. Use it in stats for Probability experiments. Use it for team challenges to randomly select problems.
Shuffled Card Deck: Google Slide Deck of both single card slides and one slide with all the cards, and instructions on how to shuffle both. Great online resource!
Visualization/Coding Platforms (Math 1, 2, 3, 5, 7)
GNU Octave: an alternative to MATLAB that "strives for compatibility"
CalcPlot3d: online grapher
SageMath - a grapher, visualizer, calculator (like MATLAB or Mathematica, but free!)
Free Checking Websites (math)
Interactive Applets (any math class)
Algebra Tiles, Number Lines, Base 10 blocks - CPM
Algebra Tiles, Number Lines, Base 10 blocks, Tangrams, etc. - Mathigon
Community Building/Active Learning Tools (any math class)
Bingo Card Generator: If you needed to create bingo cards for your class. Can be used virtually too.
Poll and Match: Free Ranked-choice voting and grouping for students (great for group projects if the teacher creates the groups)
PollEverywhere: add polls (cell/computer required) into your PPT or Google Slides. Free account is limited, but enough for a class.
Kahoot: online poll/quiz/game where students can compete (or not) by answering questions with their computer/smartphone.
Plickers: for a class of 40 or fewer, Plickers allows you to set up "clicker-like" surveys/quizzes and the students need no technology. Teacher uses smart phone camera to scan the class.
Other Cool Stuff!
Sutori - an interactive/collaborative presentation website that allows you to create timelines and share with others.
Hypothesis - a social annotation tool that you can sign up for free, allowing you to create and save notes on websites.
“The library is like a candy store where everything is free.” ~ Jamie Ford
Media Credits:
Sunset with Birds; Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash
Quote Background Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash