Animoto: www.animoto.com/education
You can get an account and create your own professional looking videos! It provides backgrounds, animation, and music! I use it to introduce new lessons or concepts.
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Mix and match music and audio to create your very own mixes for class, pep rallies, cheerleading routines, drill routines, or background audio for presentations.
Discovery Education: www.discoveryeducation.com
The mother load of lesson plans and videos on a variety of subject areas.
Dropbox: http://db.tt/gigCiv7Z (link looks funny b/c it’s a referral link from me)
Dropbox is a MUST HAVE for every student, work-a-holic, or teacher on the planet!! It’s an online storage file that you can have at your home computer and your work computer. Whatever you do to one, the other is automatically updated. I have used it to work on MAT assignments at my mom’s without having to take my laptop or a flash drive with me. I just pulled up my Dropbox file from the Internet. Likewise, my computer got a virus and everything that was in my Dropbox folder was safe and sound. It saved me. No more flash drives or emailing files!
Freemake Video Converter: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/
This tool allows you to convert video files into other formats that are compatible with your Smart Board, computer, or any other program you may be working with on a project.
Incompetech: http://incompetech.com/
Royalty free music! Great for PowerPoints and Smart Board presentations.
Jing: www.techsmith.com
Take screenshots, capture images, or take up to 5 minutes of onscreen video!
Keep Vid: http://keepvid.com/ (does not require a download)
Convert YouTube videos into video files or audio files in several formats. Just copy the link to the YouTube video and paste it into the box provided at the keepvid site. Hit download and select what type of file you want. It’s that easy. This prevents you from finding the best educational video ever only to discover it is a dead link in two days on the day you are trying to use it. If you had a permanent file, you can depend on it always being where you left it.
Openoffice: http://www.openoffice.org/
Free and alternative version of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Files can be convert back and forth between OpenOffice and Microsoft.
Smart Exchange: www.exchange.smarttech.com
Find tons and tons of smart notebook files that align to your lessons. Many of the Reading Street series units are in here that other teachers have created. There are games, lessons, interactive tools, videos, etc.
Voki: www.voki.com
Create an avatar to use as an attention getter, make announcements, introduce a concept, or for students to use as a learning tool.
Zamzar: www.Zamzar.com
Download Youtube videos using the video URL. You will email it to yourself to create a safe video with no junk ads or crazy video suggestions at the end.