EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE:

Please be aware that this software needs to be tested on your machines in your school. There are also legal issues in using cover software which is explained at the foot of this page.

This is a new section of the website and covers easily useable software for Technology. There is a great deal of freeware and strange hybrid software but if you can find free older versions of good software, you will probably find it good enough for your school and save thousands in the process. Some 'free' software is only available because it doesn't work well on Windows XP machines. Always test first.

Serif Software.

Serif have a website with free versions of DrawPlus, PhotoPlus and WebPlus. I regard Drawplus as excellent as it enables pupils to create vector format files with great accuracy and excellent features such as transparency and envelopes. Follow this link for a small e-learning film showing how to create a custom logo using DrawPlus 4, the version available free from Serif.

Some software is referred to as 'cover-disc'. In the UK there are a great many computer magazines which give away 'Free' software on their covers. When I asked about using this on a school site, Future publishing (Who have a number of computer related titles) said we should purchase a copy of the magazine for each user, another publisher said we should purchase a copy of the magazine for every computer in the school. When we tried to purchase in bulk, we could not get enough copies as the print run was finished. My personal, and probably not legal view is that you should buy five copies of a magazine which features a program you want to use and keep the receipt and cut-off fornt covers somewhere safe. This seems a reasonable response and in my experience, many schools purchase the latest version having tried the cover disc one for 'free'. Thats why the magazines usually feature an upgrade offer in the same magazine.