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Computers have added a whole new dimension to teaching. The abilities to drill for mastery of content, provide instant feedback, and work interactively between students are just a few of the opportunities available with computers. There is a potential downside as well.

Assuming that "no good deed will go unpunished", having students working on computers adds a whole layer of administrative attention that must be brought to bear. You don't need much tech support with a paper and pencil, but computer systems aren't so easy.

iTALC, the tool that provides Intelligent Teaching and Learning with Computers, can help make this part easier. Its ability to control machines remotely means that teacher can "look over the shoulders" of students, to examine their work and help coach their efforts. iTALC can also flip that around, putting the teacher's screen in front of each student at their remote workstations, making it an ideal platform for demonstrations. This functionality is not limited to a shared subnet, so remote systems can be included as well, great for students who are at home rather than school.

It can also lock workstations, so that students are paying attention to instruction, rather than being distracted by their systems. And at the end of the day, teachers can power-off an entire lab full of computers, saving lots of time.

iTALC is a free download, and runs under both Linux and Windows (Win2k or better).

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Math got you down? Kids having problems with their homework? Are you having problems with their homework? Maybe you need to do some math drills.

Math Drills is about a zillion free math worksheets–over 6,000 in reality. If you can imagine it, they probably have a worksheet for it. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division to be sure. How about integers, decimals, and fractions? Base ten blocks, order of operations, geometry and algebra. They've even got themes for different holidays–who know that St. Patrick's Day had so many math tie-ins?

These worksheets are great for teachers to supplement classroom instruction; for parents to give their young students extra practice. Use them over the summer to keep from getting "rusty".

Worksheets come with instructions and (importantly) with answers! They are all available as .pdf documents, so anybody can use them regardless of the platform you're running.

All the worksheets are free to download and use as long as they are "…helping you or someone else learn."

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Planet Earth is a restless place. Between severe weather, active earthquake faults, and erupting volcanoes, there's always something going on out there. We're all curious and like to know what's happening; sometimes, it's more than that and we really need to know.

Earth Alerts takes information from many different sources and conveniently puts it all in one place, making it easy to stay on top of what's happening out there. Calling on resources such as the US Geological Survey, the National Weather Service, and more, this app keeps you up to date on what is happening out there.

You can specify the type of information you want to track, and let Earth Alerts do the heavy lifting, keeping an eye on the data–much of it in real-time–coming from these trusted sources. You will be among the first to know when storms hit, the ground shakes, volcanoes erupt, or any of the many other events you choose to track.

Earth Alerts is a Windows app and requires WinXP or Vista.

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Scratch may be the ultimate object-oriented programming language. Developed by folks at the MIT Media Lab, Scratch is a programming language where you literally snap objects–blocks–together to build applications. Rather than procedures or functions, you drag graphic "blocks" around on screen and the order in which you hook them together determines how the resulting activity behaves.

Scratch includes blocks to move, turn, and bounce on-screen "sprites". You can speak and make sounds, draw, resize, and more. Control blocks allow you to loop and branch, test variables, and even follow your mouse.

With Scratch you can do interesting things without having to be a hard-core programmer. Designed for kids as young as 8 years, there is a large community for sharing activities. Scratch is designed to help users become familiar with the design process, while learning mathematical and computational ideas.

Scratch is available in both Windows and Mac versions, with work underway to release a Linux version by the end of 2007.

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Moonphase is a cool application that, as its name suggests, shows you the phase of the moon on a given date, incorporating NASA photos to get you up close and personal with our celestial neighbor.

By entering your latitude and longitude, you can get precise moon rise, transit, and set times, as well as rise, transit, and set times for the sun. You can set your timezone, with an option for adding an extra half hour where appropriate. A checkbox allows you to adjust for daylight/summer time.

And if you really, really need to know, now that you've entered your location information, Moonphase can give the exact distance to the moon from your location.

For anglers, Moonphase can also show you "good fishing days", as listed in the Angler's Almanac.

For those south of the equator, or the curious in the north, there is also a Southern Hemisphere version.

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If you have a question about a Mac, you’re going to find the answer in MacTracker. Processor speed, original operating system version, expansion slots–it’s all here.

MacTracker is the ultimate resource for all things Macintosh. Starting with the Lisa (Macintosh XL), you can see every computer and Apple-branded Mac-compatible device, such as printers, displays, scanners, operating systems, and extras (remember the iPod, kids?) that came out of Cupertino: pictures, specs, and even room for your own notes, with links to relevant Web sites and documents. There’s even a section for Mac clones. You can create your own “Smart Categories” to search and group information based on your own criteria, including your notes.

Along with the nitty-gritty specs, there are some cool images included with MacTracker. The info page for each system has a picture of the system, and for the computers, you can play the “Startup Chime”, and for some of the older systems, there is also a recording of the “Death Chime”–not a happy sound, that. Interesting historical tidbits are included also.

MacTracker is available in versions for MacOS 8.5+, OS X, Win2k+, and even iPod.

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One of the great things about using computers in education is that with carefully crafted software, children can think they’re merely having fun, when in fact they are actually learning. Making any subject matter fun and interesting can go a long way toward engaging children in the education process, and help to reinforce the lessons they learn through teacher instruction and working through textbooks.

Math Games Level 1 for Windows, presented by the folks at Quiz-Tree.com, is a way for students to work with addition and multiplication with numbers from 1 to 12. Rather than just a rote memorization of facts, Math Games has learners interact with the computer in learning how to put numbers together. With a couple of clicks, users can select two numbers and an operation–addition or multiplication–and see what the resulting answer is. Images and controls on the screen are big and bold, so this application is especially suitable for younger students.

Math Games Level 1 for Windows is free for personal use.

Download Math Games Level 1 for Windows

Expression is a scientific graphing calculator, similar in many ways to the Texas Instruments graphing calculators, like the TI-82, used in many schools. With Expression, you can evaluate numeric expressions, plot functions, convert between decimal, hex, octal, and binary, and more. You can enter values by clicking on the calculator itself, or by using the keyboard. Expression keeps track of previously evaluated expressions, allowing you to recycle them back into the main window, saving you time in data entry. The function catalog lets you pick functions and operations from a list.

Expression can be customized to fit the way you work. You can minimize it to the System Tray to keep it out of the way, or you can set it to “stay on top”, where it is always available to you. Licensed under the GNU GPL, the Visual Basic source code is available, just in case you always wondered how apps like this work.

Expression is a Windows app, and will run on Win95 or later.

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Did you sleep through all the astronomy lectures in college? Do you still have problems finding the Big Dipper? Stellarium may be the answer.

Stellarium is an open source planetarium application available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Set your observing position and see the sky as it appears. Did you ever wonder what it all would look like from the moon? You can choose any moon or planet from which to observe, as well as any terrestrial location. How about a different time? Set the time and date, and you can travel back, or ahead, in time.

Now about that Big Dipper: turn on labels to show you what you’re seeing. Fire up the constellation overlays and see if that really looks like a goat up there (Capricornus), or just a bunch of stars. You can dig deeper and look at deep sky objects among the constellations.

Stellarium features over 120,000 stars, as well as all the planets and their moons. There is a scripting feature that allows you to record and play back your own shows, and you can even use Stellarium to drive a telescope.

It’s too late to improve your grade, but you still have time to find Orion’s belt.

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Calendar Magic is a fascinating program which brings together all the world's most popular calendars. There's the standard Gregorian calendar, of course, but you'll also be able to explore the Julian calendar, Islamic, Coptic, and about two dozen other international calendar options. Just start with today's date, and do a one-click conversion to another calendar style. The calendar recognizes common holidays and events ("observed days") from over 230 countries, and displays special occurrences like Olympic years.

As well as being an educational aid, Calendar Magic is practical, and can store important personal dates (like birthdays), then issue reminders with an alarm. Most people will be fascinated by the "This is your life" information, including day-of-the-week on which you were born, number of days you have lived, your Zodiac sign, some biorhythm data, and the day-of-the-week on which your next birthday falls. Your "Chinese age" and your date of birth in many other calendar systems are also displayed.

Calendar Magic is designed to be easily printable, so you can customize your calendar and then print it out for home use.

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