Freely Educate

Librivox: Free Audio Books of Classics

The tagline of Librivox always makes me smile...

"Accoustical liberation of books in the public domain."

A more boring way of saying that is: Librivox offers free audiobooks of public domain books.

Thousands of books are available, read by real people (not a computer).   In our little school, we read a lot of classics, so Librivox has just about every book we need.  You may listen to the books via iTunes or mp3 and in most cases you may view the text of the book as it is read to you.

Thank you, Mandi, for reminding me of this high quality, 100% free, educational find!

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Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Mathway: Free Answers to Math Problems

This is a site for you, the educator, not for your students, unless you don't mind them knowing the answers to math problems!  Enter a math problem into Mathway, click "Answer," and you'll get your result immediately!

Visit the main site or go to the following links for solutions to arithmetic problems in the following subject areas:

• Basic Math
• Pre-Algebra
• Algebra
• Trigonometry
• Precalculus
• Calculus
• Graphing
• Glossary

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here 

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

This is a site for you, the educator, not for your students, unless you don't mind them knowing the answers to math problems!  Enter a math problem into Mathway, click "Answer," and you'll get your result immediately!

Visit the main site or go to the following links for solutions to arithmetic problems in the following subject areas:

• Basic Math
• Pre-Algebra
• Algebra
• Trigonometry
• Precalculus
• Calculus
• Graphing
• Glossary

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here 

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Storybook: Free Novel-Writing Program

I imagine it's a confusing business trying to keep track of character's traits while writing a novel or piece of fiction.  Your students, and the writers among you educators, may find Storybook to be the organizational answer you've been searching for.  Best of all:  Storybook is 100% free.

Below is a little about the program from the creators:

Storybook is a free (open source) novel-writing tool for creative writers, novelists and authors which will help you to keep an overview of multiple plot-lines while writing books, novels or other written works.

Storybook assists you in structuring your book

Store all information about your characters and locations in one place. Then, use the included Storybook features for managing chapters, scenes, characters and locations. A simple interface is provided to enable you to assign your defined characters and locations to each scene and to keep an overview of your work with user-friendly chart tools.

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here 

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Free Antique Book Art Illustrations

Old Book Art has become one of my favorite browsing websites.  I can see its potential for an educator as vast.  Peruse the files for antique maps, find an illustration to accompany a classic, have the children study an artist whose work was in an old book...

The mission of Old Book Art is:

To provide & facilitate access to free illustrations: pictures, drawings, maps and other images scanned from antiquarian, public-domain books and other old documents. We have over 3,200 images in our gallery with more added regularly, all at no cost and most available at very high resolution. Most of these we have scanned and edited ourselves. We will also screen and provide links to other high quality resources.

Here is a sampling of the book art I found on the Old Book Art site:

     

Let me know what you think of Old Book Art!

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Old Book Art has become one of my favorite browsing websites.  I can see its potential for an educator as vast.  Peruse the files for antique maps, find an illustration to accompany a classic, have the children study an artist whose work was in an old book...

The mission of Old Book Art is:

To provide & facilitate access to free illustrations: pictures, drawings, maps and other images scanned from antiquarian, public-domain books and other old documents. We have over 3,200 images in our gallery with more added regularly, all at no cost and most available at very high resolution. Most of these we have scanned and edited ourselves. We will also screen and provide links to other high quality resources.

Here is a sampling of the book art I found on the Old Book Art site:

     

Let me know what you think of Old Book Art!

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Free Phun with Physics

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that title.  Phun is a "2D physics sandbox" where your students can have fun while learning.

The creators of Phun describe the program like this:

Great for kids

Phun is a fantastic toy for children, where they can learn and appreciate physics, science and simulations in an open ended gameplay with rich creative and artistic freedom, including colorful freehand drawing.

Tina, a FreelyEducate.com reader, sent in the link to Phun. She said she appreciates why the creators are keeping Phun free: "We want to keep Phun freely available for non-commercial use, since we think and hope that Phun can make a difference in promoting science and art to the masses, in particular children and young people, through a constructionists learning paradigm."

Thank you, Tina, for sharing this high quality, 100% free, educational find with us!

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Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Free Math Program for K-12 & College Level

Khan Academy offers two things:  A "free, adaptive math program" and over 800 how-to videos on almost any math concept you can think of. 

About the math program: Our children are doing the math program this year and really prefer it over our past method of using a textbook math program.  Khan Academy's program "learns" how much you know after a couple hours of working on it.  Soon, it will have you up to the math level you should be on, and with the aid of the videos, you can keep learning math concepts, building on your knowledge. 

Khan Academy also has "over 800 videos covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, and finance," including many videos on the current economic crisis. 

About the professor (the following text is taken from the Khan Academy website) :

Salman Khan (Sal) founded the Khan Academy with the hope of using technology to foster new learning models. He is currently an investment professional in Palo Alto, CA and has held positions in venture capital, product management, and engineering. Sal received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He also holds a Masters in electrical engineering and computer science, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and a BS in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Testimonials:

Many testimonials are posted on the Khan Academy site, including these:

"I am a high school Math/Physics Teacher working in Toronto Ontario. I have been referring students to your videos for the past year and have referenced many of them on my website. Those that have used it find it very useful, and have commented that you explain content better than I do..."

"...Your videos have become very popular in my school, and my grades have sky-rocketed ever since I became accustomed to your methods of teaching..."

"I've never been very successful with algebra, I know this is pretty basic, but I have almost no comprehension of mathematics. I was honestly going to be kicked out of school for being non-productive, I was ready to be thrown out, but now I get this. Thank you so much..."

Linda Barger, who emailed me about Khan Academy said her son "loves the site."  Thank you, Linda, for this high quality, 100% free, educational find!

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here 

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Poisson Rouge: A Favorite Site of Ours for PreK-1st (-ish)

If you have preschoolers, especially, but also perhaps   elementary-aged kids, they will probably love Poisson Rouge as much as we do. 

Poisson Rouge, or, Red Fish Soup, is....um...it's a site that is hard to explain, that's what.  Here's a screenshot of it:

Your little student simply clicks on something.  Anything.  He or she can then move it, build it, learn the alphabet from it, listen to it, play with it...all depending on what he or she chooses to do.

The makers of Poisson Rouge didn't post instructions on the site, as they'd prefer that children freely do whatever they'd like to do on Poisson Rouge,  but with more than a little reluctance, they wrote up a User Guide for Teachers & Parents, which is well worth a read not only for the lesson tips, but also for their insight into how children learn.

Here are a couple of reviews posted on Poisson Rouge:

"The site encourages, relies on, and rewards exploration.  It's only gotten better as I let students cooperate with each other.  While some of the more complicated puzzles may not entertain many students, I was very pleased to find one autistic student who happily spent hours on those."

"I have a little girl just about to turn three and she loves it. It has done wonders for her mouse skills, unlike any other websites we have found she can use it completely independently and she is still finding new things to do on it."

See those little French and British flags (circles) at the bottom of the screenshot, above?  If you click on the flag of France, you'll read the site in French.  If you click on the British flag, you'll read the site in English.   A few of the children's games are affected by this, such as the alphabet.  I can see it as a neat way to teach the little ones a bit of French (or English).

I dare you to not get addicted to Poisson Rouge yourself! 

Updated 9/24:  I found Poisson Rouge TV on the site this morning.

~ Lori

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

If you have preschoolers, especially, but also perhaps   elementary-aged kids, they will probably love Poisson Rouge as much as we do. 

Poisson Rouge, or, Red Fish Soup, is....um...it's a site that is hard to explain, that's what.  Here's a screenshot of it:

Your little student simply clicks on something.  Anything.  He or she can then move it, build it, learn the alphabet from it, listen to it, play with it...all depending on what he or she chooses to do.

The makers of Poisson Rouge didn't post instructions on the site, as they'd prefer that children freely do whatever they'd like to do on Poisson Rouge,  but with more than a little reluctance, they wrote up a User Guide for Teachers & Parents, which is well worth a read not only for the lesson tips, but also for their insight into how children learn.

Here are a couple of reviews posted on Poisson Rouge:

"The site encourages, relies on, and rewards exploration.  It's only gotten better as I let students cooperate with each other.  While some of the more complicated puzzles may not entertain many students, I was very pleased to find one autistic student who happily spent hours on those."

"I have a little girl just about to turn three and she loves it. It has done wonders for her mouse skills, unlike any other websites we have found she can use it completely independently and she is still finding new things to do on it."

See those little French and British flags (circles) at the bottom of the screenshot, above?  If you click on the flag of France, you'll read the site in French.  If you click on the British flag, you'll read the site in English.   A few of the children's games are affected by this, such as the alphabet.  I can see it as a neat way to teach the little ones a bit of French (or English).

I dare you to not get addicted to Poisson Rouge yourself! 

Updated 9/24:  I found Poisson Rouge TV on the site this morning.

~ Lori

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate