I’ve found a web site that is a treasure trove of free online activities in areas across the entire curriculum. Actually, the link you see at the foot of this page leads to an index of Jo Edkins’ many separate educational pages.

This resource is a contribution from Karen Schweitzer, a freelance writer and copy editor who is the Business School Guide for About.com. 15 Slide Show Tools for Teachers is an article that links to a selection of useful (and free) sites that can be used to create, present, and publish slide shows. Bonus: Links to three more sites with free resources!

I’ve begun to create activities in HyperStudio 5® and find much to like about this new version of an old and beloved multimedia application. The biggest difference I saw right away is a modernized interface, making it much faster and easier to build activities. Bonus: Links to download players for both new and old version stacks!

Phishing is the practice of unscrupulous people setting up fake versions of legitimate web sites, often popular and excellent sites they know that many people will visit. Anti-Phishing Phil is an interactive game that teaches users how to identify phishing URLs, where to look for cues in web browsers, and how to use search engines to find legitimate sites. Play it FREE online!

I wanted to give you a heads-up about a site that offers a chance for students to do some real science. The Quake-Catcher Network offers a chance for you and your students to actually be a part of an earthquake detection network. The web site also includes science resource downloads about earthquakes, including PDFs aimed at grades K-12.

Do you know somebody you care for so much you’d like to give them the sun, moon, and stars? Now you can! Just give them the URL to download Stellarium! It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors, but it’s totally awesome on your computer screen. There are versions for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux (the source code).

The freeware sound editor Audacity (Mac/Win) is powerful and easy to use. After a short time with it, I could record, change the pitch so that my voice sounded like a baritone or a child’s voice, convert a sound effect to match the format of my recording, and paste in my sound effect after the recording to create one long track. Get Audacity, a tutorial, and a link to 5,000 free sounds!