The Internet provides instructors with many "cool 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.

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.

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 Netscape 4.5 or 4.6. This program is not installed in the student computer labs.

Yahoo! Pager
Yahoo! Pager (soon to be Yahoo! Messenger) operates in much the same way that AIM does and has many of the same features. However, Pager 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, Pager 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 Pager from any computer with Internet access, including those in the computer labs. To access the Java version of Pager, go to Pager's web site (linked above) and click on "Java Version." The Java version does not include voice chat. Pager is free.

SnagIt
SnagIt is not a communication tool in the sense of the programs above, 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. Click here to see one example (scroll down the page). 

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.

Free Web Browsers
Both Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator are available at no cost, but you need to download the programs from the web and install them on your computer. Just click on the links above to access the sites, and follow the instructions on the screen to download and install the most recent versions of the browsers.

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