Software, Tools, Guides, Programming
Free Office and Productivity Tools
- Bookmarks, Web Clipping
- Diigo / Diigo for Chrome (freemium) highlight, annotate, sticky note, share
- Google Keep / Google Keep Chrome Extension clip, organize, share
- Scrible / Scrible Chrome Extension (freemium) highlight, save, share
- Wakelet / Chrome and Firefox extensions grouping and sharing
- Chat, Conferencing:
see: Computers: Audio-Video: Video Conferencing - Converters
- CloudConvert (freemium); docs, graphics, video, audio, ebook, zip
- Online Converter (freemium); audio, videos, graphics, docs, ebooks, archives
- PDF Candy (freemium); fast convert multiple formats to/from PDF
- Zamzar (freemium); docs, graphics, video, audio, ebook, zip
- Documents and Office Apps
- Google Drive online office suite; allows collaboration
- Libre Office multiplatform office suite; allows collaboration
- Microsoft Office 365 (free for education) online office suite; allows collaboration
- Scribus desktop publishing
- File Sharing
- Box freemium, Win, Mac, Linux, mobile
- DropBox freemium, Win, Mac, Linux, mobile
- Google Drive freemium, Win, Mac, Linux, mobile
- iDrive freemium, Win, Mac, Linux, mobile
- Microsoft OneDrive freemium, Win, Mac, Linux, mobile
- Note Keeping
- Google Keep clip, organize, share
- Microsoft OneNote (free with Office, Office 365); Win, Mac, online, mobile; allows collaboration
- Notion free for personal use; Win, Mac, online, mobile
- Simplenote multiplatform, online, mobile; allows collaboration
- Zoho Notebook multiplatform, online, mobile
- OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
- Free OCR Win
- Free Online OCR online
- Google Drive and Docs (how-to instructions)
- i2OCR – Free Online OCR online
- Password Managers
- PDF Tool Suites
Multiple tools for manipulating, converting, & editing PDF files- Clever PDF
- PDF Candy freemium
- Small PDF freemium
- PDF Creators
note: Google Docs, MS Office, & Libre Office can all export to .pdf- CutePDF Writer Win
- DocuPub (convert, compress, merge, resize)
- Free PDF Creator Win
- PDFCreator Win
- PDF Readers, Form Fillers
- Adobe Reader Win, Mac, Linux
- Foxit PDF Reader Win, Mac, Linux
- Nitro PDF Reader Win
- PDFescape Win, online
- Sumatra PDF Win; also does ebooks
- Polls, Forms, Surveys
- Google Forms
- Poll Everywhere freemium; (polling via SMS)
- SurveyMonkey freemium
- SurveyPlanet freemium
- WuFoo freemium
- Screenshots
- GoFullPage Chrome add-on
- Lightscreen Win
- ScreenRec Win
- Skitch iPhone, iPad
- SniPaste Win, Mac
- Windows Snipping Tool Win
- Sticky Notes
- Globonote Win, Mac, Linux
- Simple Sticky Notes Win
- Stickies Win
- StickyPad Win
- Video Sharing
- Dailymotion
- TeacherTube Freemium
- Vimeo Freemium
- YouTube Freemium
- Whiteboards
- Conceptboard (freemium)
- Google Canvas draw pictures and share them
- Google Jamboard collaborative drawing; multiple pages
- Padlet / Padlet for Chrome (free for individuals) allows collaboration
- Whiteboard Fox allows collaboration
Google & Chromebooks
- Chrome App and Extension Datanase
- Kasey Ball of ‘Shake Up Learning’ writes,
In this post, you will find 160+ Chrome Apps and Extensions for Teachers and Students! This database is searchable and filterable by category, subject area, and grade level!
- Chrome Story
Chrome Story is a … blog dedicated to everything Chrome, Chrome OS and Chromecast. We cover news, tips, apps, extensions and themes for Chrome, Chrome OS and Chromecast.
Includes sections such as Getting Started With Chromebook and Google Chromebook Tips and Tricks.- Chromebook cheat sheet: How to get started
Got a new Chromebook? This guide will help you navigate the ever-expanding world of Chromebook apps and figure out how to make the most of Chrome OS.
- Control Alt Achieve
- Edtech blog with a strong focus on Google apps.
- Extensions vs Web Apps vs Add-ons
- An explanation and a chart showing the similarities and differences between these different Chrome tools.
- GCFGlobal: Chrome Tutorials
Learn all about browsing, customizing, and bookmarking in Chrome, as well as personalizing your privacy and security settings.
- GCFGlobal: Google
You can do a lot with a Google account these days, from using Google Drive to create and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to using Google Maps to learn your way around.
- Google: Chromebook Help
- Google’s own support page for using and customizing your Chromebook.
- Google Forms Template Gallery
- From here you can choose from blank templates for Education, Personal, or Work use.
- Google: Google Help
- Google’s own support page for using Google tools and apps. Includes topics such as Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Drive, and much more.
- Google YouTube Channel
- Google has a large store of videos for those who are looking for help with their various tools.
- How to Make Gmail Your Default Email Program
- Describes how to set Gmail as your email default with the Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers. To set it as your default on Windows, Mac, or Linux, check How To Make Gmail Your Default Email Client in 2021.
- How to Use Google for Education
…[T]his site is a resource for all students and parents to help navigate some of the key features within the Google Suite of learning tools. Each of the pages to the left house a series of short videos that will help you better understand how to navigate the numerous tools in the Google platform.
- Richard Byrne: Google Tutorials (videos)
- While many of the tutorials here are aimed at teachers, quite a few of them would be useful for anyone using Google apps and tools.
- Spice Up Your Slides with 600+ Free Design Templates
Thankfully there are many websites that have created and shared hundreds of templates that can be used for your new Google Slides presentations.
This article describes a few of those sites.
Guides, Tutorials, Tech Support
- Blockchain Explained by Common Craft video
Understand why blockchain matters in 3.5 minutes. This video is not technical and designed to make understanding easy for anyone.
- CNet How-To
Smart tips on how to make the most of all the tech in your life, from phones and smart home gadgets to internet safety.
- Cyberwise
- Cyberwise offers both subscription and free materials
to help youth use digital media safely and wisely.
- edX
edX is an online learning destination and MOOC provider, offering high-quality courses from the world’s best universities and institutions to learners everywhere.
- GCF Global
Provides quality, innovative online learning opportunities to anyone who wants to improve the technology, literacy and math skills needed to be successful in both work and life.
- Google for Education: Applied Digital Skills
- From creating documents through research and project management, these free video lessons use Google tools to teach vital online skills.
- Home and Learn
- Home and Learn is a
… free computer courses and tutorials site. All the courses are aimed at complete beginners, so you don’t need experience to get started.
- Khan Academy: Computing
- Introductory and advanced classes in computer topics, each class consisting of a series of short video lessons.
- Lifehacker: Tech
Let us help you troubleshoot your computer problems, soup up your wifi, and generally make all of your devices work better.
- MakeUseOf
Our aim is to equip readers like you with the know-how to make the most of today’s tech, explained in simple terms that anyone can understand. We also encourage readers to use tech in productive and meaningful ways.
- Microsoft: Digital Literacy
Learn how to gain digital literacy to use devices, software, and the Internet to collaborate with others and discover, use, and create information.
- PC World: How-To
- Articles and information from PC World magazine.
- Tech-Talk
- Tech-Talk offers weekly articles and videos about Google and Microsoft products and other technology topics. (Check with the librarian for your seton username and password.)
- The Webby Awards
- Sites chosen by web experts as some of the best online sites. Arranged by category.
- Wired How-To
A collaborative site filled with all kinds of projects, hacks, tricks and tips you can edit.
Mostly but not entireley tech-related.
Programming
- Academic Tutorials.com
You will find over 100 programming language tutorials, lessons, and how-to’s.
- Alice
Alice is a teaching tool designed as a revolutionary approach to teaching and learning introductory programming concepts…. 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.
- Codeacademy
Learn to code, interactively, for free.
- Code.org
- Free courses and learning activities.
Build real working apps, games and websites using blocks, JavaScript, CSS, HTML and more.
- Code for Life
Anyone can learn how to code. We will help you learn how. It’s fun, free and easy. Whether you’re a teacher or a student, our games support and guide you, making learning to code great fun.
- Code Monster
Code Monster from Crunchzilla is an interactive tutorial for kids that focuses on action. Code changes immediately yield visible results. Projects start with simple boxes and colors, rapidly progressing into exciting experiments with simple animation and fractals. Important programming concepts like variables, loops, conditionals, expressions, and functions are introduced by example.
- CS Unplugged
CS Unplugged is a collection of free teaching material that teaches Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.
They also have their own YouTube Channel.- Grasshopper
Learn to code with bite-size visual puzzles. … Grasshopper covers the foundations of JavaScript, how to create animations with code, teaches solving problem techniques needed for technical interviews and introduces how to build a website with HTML and CSS.
Free for online or mobile.- Khan Academy – Computer Programming
Learn the fundamentals of programming on the Khan Academy Computer Science platform. Explore programs made by others. Write your own programs and share them!
- Kodu Game lab
Kodu lets kids create games on the PC and Xbox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Anyone can use Kodu to make a game, young children as well as adults with no design or programming skills.
- MIT OpenCourseWare: Introductory Programming Courses
- Excellent introductory courses for beginners. Classes includes video lectures, handouts, homework problems, and self-assessment quizzes.
- Programming Basics
- Programming tutorial starting from the most basic concepts.
- Regular Expressions
A regular expression (regex or regexp for short) is a special text string for describing a search pattern. You can think of regular expressions as wildcards on steroids.
Describes how regular expressions work and offers a tutorial for learning the basics of how to use them.- Scratch
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.
- Small Basic
Small Basic is the only programming language created specially to help students transition from block-based coding to text-based coding. By teaching the fundamental elements of syntax-based languages in an approachable manner, Small Basic gives students the skills and confidence to tackle more complex programming languages…
- Think Like a Coder (videos)
- A 10 episode animated series follows a pair of characters who
…embark on a quest to collect three artifacts and must solve their way through a series of programming puzzles….
challenges the viewer to solve the puzzle along with the characters. - Tutorialspoint: Computer Programming Tutorial
This tutorial has been prepared for the beginners who are willing to learn computer programming but they are unable to learn it due to lack of proper guidance. We are confident that after completing this tutorial, you will be at a level where you can code in C Programming language and will have a basic understanding of Java and Python programming languages as well…