PC Software Image

Below is a guide for staff to support our new standard software image at school.  I’ve added a lot of free software, thought the whole list might be of interest to some.

What software do you have on your school image?

Microsoft Office 2010 Applications

Latest version of Microsoft Office.  With a tiny bit of practice, this latest version is much easier to use well than Office 2003 which it has replaced.

Biggest change is the introduction of the ‘ribbon’ interface.  Clicking ‘Home’ ‘Insert’ etc brings up a new menu for that area of Word.  This actually places many more of the useful functions at your finger tips.  It’s also worth spending 5 minutes getting used to the new ‘File’ menu which handles saving, printing etc..

If you would like some further information about Office 2010 then here are a few links:

What’s new documents for each program.  Where’s the menu item guides.  And a selection of education templates for lots of useful things.

OneNote is a part of Office 2010 that you may not have seen, it is a very powerful note-taking tool.  Think of it as a digital scrapbook.  Here’s a beginners guide if you are interested.
Internet Explorer 8 CEOP Version

Latest version of Internet Explorer which includes links to the CEOP ThinkUKnow websites.  This allows staff or students to get help online if they see anything untoward.

Staff Only Folder:

SMART Notebook Software 10

Latest release of SMART Notebook for use with our interactive whiteboards.  If you’d like tips on how to use it speak to Mr Bradshaw who is our resident expert.

I would also strongly recommend looking for ready made resources for your IWB on the SMART Exchange website.

Visualiser

Software to use with our low-cost visualisers.  If you’d like to try one out speak to IT Support.

Subject Specific Folders

If a subject had a very specific piece of software that was only relevant to their department it’s in here.  If you had some software that actually could have been used in other subjects then look at the ‘Learning Tools’ folder.

Learning Tools Folder:

Creativity Folder:

Adobe Creative Suite 3

The complete Adobe suite of software.  Mr Hill & Mr Keating are the experts on these but a few highlights:

Photoshop Industry standard image editing software.

Illustrator Fantastic package for designing illustrated documents, posters, advertising, diagrams etc..  Difficult to start with but incredibly powerful.

Premier Pro Professional video editing.

Audacity

Audio editing software.  Great for taking pieces of recorded audio and quickly editing them.  Really easy to use – would be great for making your own podcasts or radio shows.

Paint

Microsoft Paint – a bit pants but if you need the most simple of image editing software it will do!

Scultpris

3D Modelling software.  Imagine a piece of electronic clay for you to model with and you’ll get the idea.  Free software.

Google Sketchup

More 3D modelling software but this is better for building more uniform objects such as cars and houses.  Free software.

Windows Movie Maker

Basic video editing software.  Good for taking small clips and cutting together or adding titles etc..  Guide.  Free software.

Handbrake

Powerful video converter.

Freemind

Mind mapping software.  Beginners guide.  Free software.

Scratch

A flash game creator and basic computer programming package.  Scratch is fantastic, easy to use, fun and has many learning applications if you’re willing to give it a little thought.  Have a look at the examples on the website or better still go to the educators community.  Free software.

Xtranormal State

3D Movie Creator!  You type the 3D actors speak – really great storytelling software.  Free software.

Microsoft Photo Story 3

Software to make stories out of photographs (or any images)!  Make a slide show style story with special effects from any images.  Free software.

Paint.net

Image editing software.  Think of it as somewhere in between the basic-ness of Paint and the power of Photoshop.  Free software.

Pivot Stick Animator

Animation software based around stick-men. Video guides galore.  Free software.

Alice

3D programming package. Massive potential but quite a learning curve to begin with.  Checkout the ‘Teaching’ section on the website for ideas, inspiration and guides.  Free software.

Jing

Screen-casting software.  This allows you to record what you are doing on a screen as a video, if you have a microphone you can of course record that too.  Excellent for recording demonstrations and tutorials of software or websites.  Free software.

Discovery Folder:

Google Earth 5

Latest version of Google Earth.  Startup guide.  Really powerful, learn about the different layers of information that you can overlay onto the globe.  Free software.

Stellarium

Star-gazing software.  A view of the night sky.  Free software.

Media Player Classic

Lightweight video/audio player.  Two other media players are provided but this is the quickest and easiest to use.  Free software.

Foxit Reader – PDF reader.  Free software.

Nero Express – CD/DVD burning software.

Duck Capture – Great screen capture software – takes an image of the whole screen or just a portion of it.  Free software.

Hamster Video Converter – Quick video converting software. Takes a video file and converts it to another format.  Useful for converting the videos from the Flip cameras to a more use-able format.  Also good for converting to formats that works well on iPod Touches and iPhones.  Free software.

Microsoft Maths Add-in – this allows you to easily type in formulae and other Maths into Microsoft Office.