Software

Finding

Software for the classroom

on the Internet

The sites can be categorized into three major categories: sites by distributors (eg. Amazon.com), sites from publishers, and personal sites by people like you and me trying to help each other out. Distributors offer great prices and selection but you may have to sift through it and try not to be distracted by their other products. Publishers can cater to your needs but their prices aren't as great as the distributors. (Go figure!) Personal sites are very helpful but their format is sometimes difficult to understand and may offer hidden gold nuggets every now and then.

Keywords: If you wish to search for sites on your own use the key words children and software to get the best results. Using the word educational will provide a broader result.

Major Distributors (These companies distribute ALL types of software.)

Egghead Software http://www.egghead.com/

This sight offers an incredible selection of educational software at discounted prices. The site takes a long time to download and is not very intutiitive to navigate, but if you can get around you'll most likely find what you're looking for at a very good price.

Software House http://www.softwarehouse.com/childrens_software.htm/

Find tons of titles here to purchase. You can search for Mac or Window software or both!

Educational Software (These sites have been targetted to parents and educators.)

Childbright Software http://www.childbright.com/

Software categorized by grade level and subject can be found in this site dedicated to educators.

Smart Kids Software http://smartkidssoftware.com/

This site is dedicated to software for kids. It includes catalogs of titles from leading publishers as well as reviews from kids about each one! They offer discounted software but it's not as cheap as other places.

Bob Bowman's Guide to Free Educational Software http://www.user.shentel.net/rbowman/

Bob's site offers more resources for teachers willing to go the extra mile to save some money. You'll find some helpful advice but getting the free software will take some extra techie know-how.

Other resources...

If you can't find what you're looking for on the internet try...

Office Depot --they usually have some good software on sale for $10 - $15.

Costco -- sometimes they have some titles on clearance.

asking the tech representative (if you have one) at your site.

asking a mentor or experienced teacher at your site, they might let you borrow something.