The Internet provides instructors with many tools that could be used for educational purposes. Many of the programs are completely free. This page highlights only a few of the many free resources that you might consider using to enhance your teaching.

Thinkwave
Thinkwave is free grade book software. After installing Thinkwave software on their computers, instructors can use Thinkwave to record grades for all of their classes. Then, by clicking a "Publish to Web" button, instructors can make grades accessible to students on the Web. Grades are password protected. Each student receives an individual login and password, and students see only their own grades. Neither the student's name nor his or her social security number appears on the screen when the student accesses grade information. Posting grades to the Web in only one feature of Thinkwave. Instructors can also use the calendar features to make students aware of upcoming assignments and can post handouts, assignments, and messages to students. I have used Thinkwave for about a year, and students (and I) love it.  Again, Thinkwave is free. For more information, check out http://www.thinkwave.com. (You can enter Thinkwave as the fictional student Richie Cunningham by entering Richie's login name: rambo/9hwq4 and password: 0tekp)

TestPilot
The college recently invested in quizzing and testing software called TestPilot. TestPilot is one of the best programs available for the creation and online delivery of secure quizzes, tests, and surveys. TestPilot automatically grades assessments, providing students with immediate feedback, and automatically keeps a record of the grades for instructors. The software also includes many security features designed to minimize cheating. TestPilot is fairly easy to use, but it does require some time to learn, so we are saving TestPilot training for Session 2 of our Faculty Summer Institute. However, you can read about TestPilot at http://www.clearLearning.com/.

Other People's Quizzes
Many online quizzes can be found on the Internet, quizzes created by others but available to everyone. An excellent example is at Guide to Grammar and Writing. Just click on the "Quizzes" link to see the many quizzes available at this web site. It might take a little searching, but you should be able to locate online quizzes in your discipline.

AIM
AIM stands for AOL Instant Messenger, a free communication tool from Netscape and America Online. Users add people's AIM names to their "buddy lists," and when a buddy goes online, the user is alerted by the sound of an opening door. The buddy list also indicates which users are online and which are not. Users send synchronous ("real time") messages to one another via AIM, and any new postings cause the message to pop up on the screen through other programs. AIM is a great way to communicate synchronously, and a great way to get someone's attention if you need a quick answer. AIM is free and downloads automatically with recent versions of Netscape.

Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger operates in much the same way that AIM does and has many of the same features. However, Yahoo! Messenger includes a terrific feature that AIM currently does not: voice chat. Users simply mouse click on the voice chat button and speak into a microphone. The sound is not telephone quality, but the program seems to work well. And, unlike AIM, Yahoo! Messenger saves each buddy list in a way that allows users to see the same list on any computer. This program is not installed in the student computer labs, but students can use a Java version of Yahoo! Messenger from any computer with Internet access, including those in the computer labs. To access the Java version of Yahoo! Messenger, go to the web site linked above and click on "Java Version." The Java version does not include voice chat. Pager is free.

Nicenet's Internet Classroom Assistant
Nicenet's Internet Classroom Assistant is a web site from a non-profit organization. At this site, you can set up a class for your students and can then send and receive messages in asynchronous discussion groups, post course outlines and other handouts, send and receive private messages, and more. If you want to enter a class I set up for us, just type Z24620F49 as the Class Key, and then register yourself as a student in the course. (I just recently discovered this site, so I do not know much about it, but it looks interesting.)

Free Disk Space on the Internet
Several companies, including i-drive.com and FreeDrive, provide free disk space on the Internet for the storage of your files, just as the college provides drives on the network. Free space on the web has many educational possibilities, including the posting of handouts and other documents in a shared free drive that both you and your students could access.

SnagIt
SnagIt is not a communication tool in the sense of some of the other programs listed here, but it is a useful and free program with many instructional applications. With just a few keystrokes, SnagIt takes an electronic snapshot of whatever appears on a computer screen or on part of the screen. You can then save the image as a gif or jpeg file and insert the image into a document, including a web page. (See an example).

Cool Tools
Cool Tools is a web site from the Web Technology Group of the University of Illinois. At Cool Tools, you can find a wide selection of communication technologies that have instructional applications. Many of the programs are completely free, but some are complicated. A tour of Cool Tools should give a good idea of the many available technologies.

Download.com
CNET Download.com's education section lists many free or inexpensive programs with instructional applications that are available to download.

And, of course, there is . . .

E-Mail
Today, many companies provide free e-mail service. You do not even need to own a computer to use e-mail. Because e-mail is often exchanged between only two people and is limited to asynchronous communication, it is not the most effective way to communicate electronically, but it is still the most popular form of communication via the Internet. If you do not have yet have an e-mail account or would like to open another account, you might read Free your Email: CNET Picks the Web's Top Free Email Service to help you decide on the best free service. If you are new to e-mail, you might read A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email, by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood.