Educational freeware

[ffutures]

We've been downlading some rather nice Windows programs from http://www.visualsimulations.co.uk/

Their freeware includes some science programs (most notably Atomscope, a simulator for some molecular processes including digestion, diffusion, etc. and Radiation Lab, which simulates radioactivity experiments), interactive whiteboard utilities, an on-screen stopwatch, etc. Best of all the programs are small by modern standards - under one megabyte for Atomscope, 4.5mb for Radiation lab, for example. Thoroughly recommended.

Comments

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Know anything that works with a Mac?

My school board runs the Windows computers centrally, which means we can't actually install educational software on the educational computers. So I'm pretty well stuck with the few iMacs they haven't repossessed yet...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not really - since we don't use macs at work (apart from a couple in the art department) I haven't really looked at educational software much. There's a pretty good oscilloscope program, Mixscope, but apart from that I'm not aware of anything particularly exciting. But no doubt there's tons of stuff out there if you look for it, I just haven't.

Sounds to me like you want to find someone who works at the school board's server site and talk to them.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Centralled controlled network designed by MFP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Computer_Leasing_Inquiry). Not liked by any of the teachers I've talked to at schools where it has been rolled out -- and we are on the block next year.

The people who run the network are the same chaps who decided that, for example, rather than phoning in problems you should email them. Which led to people phoning other schools trying to find one with a functioning network, so that they could send an email to tell tech support that their network access was down.

Helpful and concerned they aren't.

[angstoutlet.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. The new version of AtomScope's been posted on the site with twice as many simulations.

We're also adding a IWB presentation program called WordWall in the next week... it's really really good. The programmer (Ben) has really done a fantastic job.