Free Software for a Primary School

[sfoord]

I’m setup a new Windows 2008 Server R2 at a Primary school this half-term, So I’m re-imaging all the PC’s & Laptops in the School. I’m looking for free Primary software to put on, the list I’ve made so far is below, just want to know if I’m missing anything good off:)

 

Sun Java

.Net 1, 2, 3.5 sp1

Sysinternals Tools

Shockwave Player

Flash Player

Adobe Reader

FireFox

DelProf

ISO Recorder

K-Lite Codec Pack

QuickTime

RealPlayer

USBDLM

Group Policy Preference Client Side Extensions for Windows XP

 

Kompozer

Italc (Suite Only)

Acid Xpress

Audacity

FreeMind

Paint.Net

Google Earth

Music Maker Basic 9

TuxPaint

TuxType2

HotPotatoes

OpenOffice

Scibus

Smartboard 10

 

Plus the normal bought software MS Office, 2Simple, dazzle etc

[p858snake]

You might want to look at KLite again because if i remember correctly I heard they were packaging certain components illegally.

 

I've been recommended the CCCP codec package several times, but i have never used it outside a home situation.

[CyberNerd]

eXe

 

VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player

[t_h]

Open Office and MS Office? Personally I'd just stick with MS Office if its all bought and paid for.

 

Anyway in answer to your question we find Picasa very popular.

[FN-GM]

Plenty here to be going on: http://www.edugeek.net/wiki/index.php/The_Essential_Software_List

[Michael]

I'd recommend QuickTime Alternative and RealPlayer to reduce the 'fat' running on your workstations. You may also want to have a look at the custom Firefox setup I created recently. All can be found here.

[sted]

Open Office and MS Office? Personally I'd just stick with MS Office if its all bought and paid for.

 

Anyway in answer to your question we find Picasa very popular.

 

usually primary schools dont have blanket licences for office they in my experience have enough for teacher laptops and say 6 or so other pcs so blanket installing open office makes sense to me as it does most of what the kids are ever going to want to do and that way all pcs have a common program

 

its also worth looking at

 

paint.net

gimp (possibly just be careful dont let it have any file associations or you wont get them back)

photostory 3

stellarium

(depending what version of office you run office 2007 compatibility pack)

google earth (proxy permitting as leas proxy requires login it can be a pita as it loads and just shows nothing usually unless they are already on the net)

bullzip pdf can be quite handy and script deploys fairly well

i tend to use vista codec pack over klite

audacity

[TRobinson]

How about having a look at Promethean's ActivInspire - the Personal Edition is free to install on as many systems as you like - the Primary GUI is superb and I'm sure your students will have hours of fun.

 

ActivInspire : Software : Support : Promethean Planet

[witch]

Trellian Web Page - useful for webpage design for top primary years

[Mr.Ben]

Google SketchUp

RealAlternative (Not sure on the legality of this though)!

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope

FoxIT Pdf Reader (Instead of Adobe - Especially if you use redirection on Appdata)

Wink

Scratch

RubberFace

The Hat

Pivot

 

If the licensing at the school is for Office 2003 then:

Office Compatibility Pack (To open docx, xlsx andd pptx)

PDFCreator (from sourceforge) - although you could add this anyway for PDF printing from any app.

 

If it's Office 2007 then make sure you deploy SP2 for it