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Free Adobe ColdFusion for Educators

Today's freebie is going to go over the heads of most of us educators.  But if you're a computer programming teacher or want to to get your hands on just the right programming software for your bright geek, this one is for you.

Adobe wrote the following description of ColdFusion:

What Is ColdFusion?

Initially, developing highly interactive and data-rich sites was a difficult process. Writing custom Web-based applications was a job for experienced programmers only. A good working knowledge of Unix was a prerequisite, and experience with traditional development or scripting languages was a must.

But all that has changed. Macromedia's ColdFusion enables you to create sites every bit as powerful and capable as those listed earlier, without a long and painful learning curve. In fact, rather than being painful, the process is actually fun! (text taken from the Adobe Press blog)

Here's the exciting& free part:

Adobe is offering ColdFusion 9 for FREE to educators (value: $1,299)

Adobe is also offering ColdFusion Builder for FREE to educators (value: $299)

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Elementary Grades' Computer Programming for Free

You will want to "scratch" after you've seen this program!  Scratch is a way for children (and you!) to learn how to create computer programs.  It's easy and brightly-colored and somewhat like playing with virtual Legos.   Push a button, and your creation can sing or move or do much more.  

The program, Scratch, was created by the amazingly bright minds at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who describe it like this:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

How is this educational? MIT has this to say...

As young people create projects in Scratch, they learn many of the 21st century skills that will be critical to success in the future: thinking creatively, communicating clearly, analyzing systematically, using technologies fluently, collaborating effectively, designing iteratively, learning continuously.

Scratch can be used in many different settings: schools, museums, community centers, and homes. It is intended especially for 8- to 16-year-olds, but younger children can work on Scratch projects with their parents or older siblings, and college students use Scratch in some introductory computer science classes.

If you are new to computer programming, don't worry, you can still teach with Scratch! 

• Visit the Educators page for a getting started guide and more. 
• Visit the Terms of Use page to get an idea of how MIT keeps the site safe for kids.
• Visit Scratch in the News to read what the media says about the program, including big media companies like the NY Times, BBC and Scholastic Magazine.
• Visit the main page and start Scratching!  It's easy enough to figure out that you really don't need to read anything to start. 
• Be a part of Scratch Day, May 22, 2010.

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Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

The program, Scratch, was created by the amazingly bright minds at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who describe it like this:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

How is this educational? MIT has this to say...

As young people create projects in Scratch, they learn many of the 21st century skills that will be critical to success in the future: thinking creatively, communicating clearly, analyzing systematically, using technologies fluently, collaborating effectively, designing iteratively, learning continuously.

Scratch can be used in many different settings: schools, museums, community centers, and homes. It is intended especially for 8- to 16-year-olds, but younger children can work on Scratch projects with their parents or older siblings, and college students use Scratch in some introductory computer science classes.

If you are new to computer programming, don't worry, you can still teach with Scratch! 

• Visit the Educators page for a getting started guide and more. 
• Visit the Terms of Use page to get an idea of how MIT keeps the site safe for kids.
• Visit Scratch in the News to read what the media says about the program, including big media companies like the NY Times, BBC and Scholastic Magazine.
• Visit the main page and start Scratching!  It's easy enough to figure out that you really don't need to read anything to start. 
• Be a part of Scratch Day, May 22, 2010.

~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

The program, Scratch, was created by the amazingly bright minds at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who describe it like this:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

How is this educational? MIT has this to say...

As young people create projects in Scratch, they learn many of the 21st century skills that will be critical to success in the future: thinking creatively, communicating clearly, analyzing systematically, using technologies fluently, collaborating effectively, designing iteratively, learning continuously.

Scratch can be used in many different settings: schools, museums, community centers, and homes. It is intended especially for 8- to 16-year-olds, but younger children can work on Scratch projects with their parents or older siblings, and college students use Scratch in some introductory computer science classes.

If you are new to computer programming, don't worry, you can still teach with Scratch! 

• Visit the Educators page for a getting started guide and more. 
• Visit the Terms of Use page to get an idea of how MIT keeps the site safe for kids.
• Visit Scratch in the News to read what the media says about the program, including big media companies like the NY Times, BBC and Scholastic Magazine.
• Visit the main page and start Scratching!  It's easy enough to figure out that you really don't need to read anything to start. 
• Be a part of Scratch Day, May 22, 2010.

~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

Free College Courses!

Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is for the adult who wants to learn, for the college student who wants to take an online course, and for the instructor who wants to teach from a ready-made curriculum. 

For Students:  OLI's Open & Free courses are just that -- open and free.  They are open to anyone around the world who wants access to learning and they are 100% free.  Any catch?  You won't receive credit or a diploma from Carnegie Mellon, but you may arrange that with your local school*.  The current  Open & Free courses available at OLI are:

For Teachers: Go to the "Teach an Academic Course using OLI" page for more information on how to set up the courses for students.  NOTE:  The instructor account is free.  The students that you add under an instructor account are free for some courses, but a few courses charge $15-25 maintenance fee per student.  OLI suggests that you contact them if the amount of money suggested will prevent a student from taking the course.  All of the fees (free included) are listed in a blue sidebar box on the instructor's information page. 

What's the difference between an Open & Free Course or an Instructor Account?  This:

*Will I receive credit? Students will not receive credit from Carnegie Mellon for courses taken; however, students may convince a school to offer credit or diplomas for the courses taken at OLI.  See the FAQ page for more information on how to get credit for the courses. Many schools are already accepting OLI courses, so check with yours.

Here is another link to the Open Learning Initiative homepage.

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Free Computer Programming for Kids (K-5th Grade)

Logo is a computer programming language which is easy enough for children to learn.   I have a few sites for you to visit, each about Logo and how it might be used in educating your students:

• First off, here is what Wikipedia has to say on what Logo is and how it is used today

• The Logo Workshop is 10 lessons, designed for about the K-5th grade level, and are about 45 minutes in length (each). "The lesson is explained with a mixture of text, pictures, code samples, and hands-on activities. Each lesson ends with an open-ended activity where the children are encouraged to create something interesting using what they have just learned."  

• Here is a download site for MSWLogo, some Logo books, and "Logo Sightseeing"

• And here is another download site, for FMSLogo (this site mentions that FMSLogo is the new name for MSWLogo). 

A big thank you to Antonia Colias  for sharing these high quality, 100% free, educational finds with us!

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Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

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

Free Computer Programming for Middle School, High School & College Level Students

Alice, a computer programming software from Carnegie Mellon University, is an exciting educational find for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college age students.  

Carnegie Mellon can certainly explain the program better than me. The following is from the Alice.org site:

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice's interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

Alice comes in two different programs:

• The main program, Alice, was created for high schoolers and college age students by Carnegie Mellon University.
• Storytelling Alice was designed for middle schoolers (particularly girls) by a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ready to get started?  Here are a few quick links to helpful information (go to the main site, Alice.org, for these links and more):

• Promotional Videos on what Alice is and how to use it.
• Teacher Tutorials
• Community Forum where you'll find many answers to your questions
• Alice download (the one for high school to college age)
• Storytelling Alice download (for middle schoolers)

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

Carnegie Mellon can certainly explain the program better than me. The following is from the Alice.org site:

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice's interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

Alice comes in two different programs:

• The main program, Alice, was created for high schoolers and college age students by Carnegie Mellon University.
• Storytelling Alice was designed for middle schoolers (particularly girls) by a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ready to get started?  Here are a few quick links to helpful information (go to the main site, Alice.org, for these links and more):

• Promotional Videos on what Alice is and how to use it.
• Teacher Tutorials
• Community Forum where you'll find many answers to your questions
• Alice download (the one for high school to college age)
• Storytelling Alice download (for middle schoolers)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

Free Computer Typing Program for K-6th

Earlier this week, I highlighted TuxPaint & TuxMath.  Today, I have one more program to show you from the same (and, yes, with the same cute penguin).  This one is for practicing typing skills.

The developers write this about TuxTyping: "TuxTyping is an educational typing tutor for kids starring Tux, the Linux penguin. This educational game comes with two different games for practicing your typing, and having a great time doing it."

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

Free Web Building Tutorials

I've used W3Schools free tutorials for years to learn how to work on websites, but it wasn't until I used their site today that it occurred to me that you all might want to know about them, too!

W3Schools offers free full tutorials on many web building topics, such as learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and much more.   Don't know what any of those mean? 

Don't worry; W3Schools makes complicated topics pretty easy. They write:

Because time is valuable, we deliver quick and easy learning. At W3Schools, you can study everything you need to learn, in an accessible and handy format.

"Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of words required to explain anything"

William of Ockham (1285-1349)"

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Subscribe to FreelyEducate here 

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

Computer Skills: StarLogo and NetLogo

I can't add a lot of commentary to this post without showcasing my ignorance in computer programming, so I'm just going to let you know about these two programs from MIT and Northwestern.  You might want to check them out if you have students who need to learn computer programming or if you just want to know why birds flock like they do*.

(The following description are taken from their sites):

NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment.

StarLogo is a programmable modeling environment for exploring the workings of decentralized systems -- systems that are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. With StarLogo, you can model (and gain insights into) many real-life phenomena, such as *bird flocks, traffic jams, ant colonies, and market economies.

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Free Invention Site for Kids: Invent Now

Where would we be without our lights, stoves, heaters, and especially our all-important iPods, Blackberries and laptops?  If we had a world without inventors, we'd have a simple world, indeed.  I love simplicity, but I also love modern conveniences, so I'm all for encouraging students to invent things.  So is InventNow.org...

Free Computer Programming for Kids (& Free Logo Lessons Workshop)

(the following description is directly from the FMSLogo site)

FMSLogo is a free implementation of a computing environment called Logo, which is an interactive programming language that is simple, powerful, and best of all fun. Because of this, FMSLogo is ideal for elementary school computer labs. Logo is powerful enough for computer research, but simple enough so that it could be enjoyed by children. Logo is different from other computer languages that are taught to children, in that Logo encourages exploring ideas over getting the right answer. The Logo Workshop (free kid-friendly lessons on how to use Logo) At the Logo Workshop site, you'll find a full series of lessons on what to do with that Logo program you just downloaded.  Here is their description of The Logo Workshop: Kids who partake in this workshop will learn the fundamentals of computer programming. They will learn just how dumb a computer really is. They will also learn how to teach the computer to accomplish new tasks by breaking the task down into very simple instructions, instructions that are so simple that even a turtle can follow them. Along the way, they will also learn about geometry and natural language, as well as practice some fundamental computer skills, such as typing, multitasking, and copying & pasting. Thank you, Antonia, for sharing this high quality, 100% free educational find with us! Subscribe to FreelyEducate here Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Free Technology Education Curriculum from Intel

We all know that Intel creates computer parts, but did you know that they are also committed to educating children?  Intel Education is full of lesson plans and full curriculum on the subject of technology for K-12 students.

A FreelyEducate.com reader sent in the Intel Education link. She wrote:

"I came across a free technology and engineering curriculum.  It is through Intel at www.intel.com/education  Click on K-12 Teaching Resources.  I really liked the following curriculum:

1.  It's a Wild Ride- lessons on roller coaster design
2.  The Journey Inside-  online interactive lessons on the parts of the computer
3.  Design and Discovery-  printable engineering curriculum

Thanks,
Kim Weber"

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

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

Alice: Free Computer Programming for Students

Alice, a computer programming software from Carnegie Mellon University, is an exciting educational find for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college age students.  

Carnegie Mellon can certainly explain the program better than me. The following is from the Alice.org site:

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice's interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

Alice comes in two different programs:

• The main program, Alice, was created for high schoolers and college age students by Carnegie Mellon University.
• Storytelling Alice was designed for middle schoolers (particularly girls) by a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ready to get started?  Here are a few quick links to helpful information (go to the main site, Alice.org, for these links and more):

• Promotional Videos on what Alice is and how to use it.
• Teacher Tutorials
• Community Forum where you'll find many answers to your questions
• Alice download (the one for high school to college age)
• Storytelling Alice download (for middle schoolers)

Thank you, Mary, for this high quality, 100% free, educational find! 

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

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

Alice, a computer programming software from Carnegie Mellon University, is an exciting educational find for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college age students.  

Carnegie Mellon can certainly explain the program better than me. The following is from the Alice.org site:

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice's interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

Alice comes in two different programs:

• The main program, Alice, was created for high schoolers and college age students by Carnegie Mellon University.
• Storytelling Alice was designed for middle schoolers (particularly girls) by a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ready to get started?  Here are a few quick links to helpful information (go to the main site, Alice.org, for these links and more):

• Promotional Videos on what Alice is and how to use it.
• Teacher Tutorials
• Community Forum where you'll find many answers to your questions
• Alice download (the one for high school to college age)
• Storytelling Alice download (for middle schoolers)

Thank you, Mary, for this high quality, 100% free, educational find! 

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

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

Intel Education: Technology Curriculum

We all know that Intel creates computer parts, but did you know that they are also committed to educating children?  Intel Education is full of lesson plans and full curriculum on the subject of technology for K-12 students.

A FreelyEducate.com reader sent in the Intel Education link. She wrote:

"I came across a free technology and engineering curriculum.  It is through Intel at www.intel.com/education  Click on K-12 Teaching Resources.  I really liked the following curriculum:

1.  It's a Wild Ride- lessons on roller coaster design
2.  The Journey Inside-  online interactive lessons on the parts of the computer
3.  Design and Discovery-  printable engineering curriculum

Thanks,
Kim Weber"

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

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

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

Computer Programming for Kids: LOGO

Logo is a computer programming language which is easy enough for children to learn.   I have a few sites for you to visit, each about Logo and how it might be used in educating your students:

• First off, here is what Wikipedia has to say on what Logo is and how it is used today

• The Logo Workshop is 10 lessons, designed for about the K-5th grade level, and are about 45 minutes in length (each). "The lesson is explained with a mixture of text, pictures, code samples, and hands-on activities. Each lesson ends with an open-ended activity where the children are encouraged to create something interesting using what they have just learned."  

• Here is a download site for MSWLogo, some Logo books, and "Logo Sightseeing"

• And here is another download site, for FMSLogo (this site mentions that FMSLogo is the new name for MSWLogo). 

A big thank you to Antonia Colias  for sharing these high quality, 100% free, educational finds with us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

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

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