Zoho is a suite of office software that you can use online, or you can download onto your computer and use offline, and then synch with your online content. So you get the best of both worlds. Speaking of both worlds, you can get Zoho in Japanese too. With about 20 diffferent applications (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, email, planner, chat wiki, notebook), you can’t go wrong. Especially since it’s all free.
After you sign up for an account at Google (free), you can do all kinds of things. You have a free word processor and spreadsheet and presentation software, all online, without downloading anything. It is saved automatically so you can’t lose anything and you can access it anywhere you can access the Internet.
My favorite trick is to work with 3 or 4 students on one paragraph together in a classroom, and project the document on the screen. I invite the students to join me, and start a paragraph. They add sentences and correct each other at the same time, and Google updates it every 5 seconds or so. My students are usually right there in the class, but they could be anywhere in the world. Many online schools use this to tutor students in writing, with teachers half way around the world from the students.
Open Office does almost everything that Microsoft Office does, and is free. It is probably the best example of Open Source software. This software was created by dedicated volunteers. The support for the software is better than you can get at Microsoft, in most cases. Open Office comes in Japanese too, as well as many other languages. More and more companies, governments and organizations are using this software, because it does everything they need it to.
Mind Maps are used instead of Outlines to organize your thoughts, usually for a project or a paper. This makes mind mapping simple, almost as simple as a pen and paper. The great thing is that you can share them with others, and they can change them too. bubbl.us
Audacity is software for using sounds. You can record things, and edit them, and then save them and send them to other people. It is free, is available in English, Japanese and many other languages. You can use it with Windows, OSX (Macintosh) or Linux. I use it 3 or four times a week to make an audio podcast (like an Internet radio show). But you can use it in a few minutes to record your voice, or have your students record their voices, and send them to you for homework. Audacity uses lots of different sound formats, but most people use MP3, because it makes small files that any computer (or your iPod) can use.
On this sample here, you can see the buttons that look like a tape recorder. Use them to record and save your files. You can edit the sounds much like a word processor, cutting out parts you don’t like or adding background music if you want to get fancy. You can then use the sound files in presentations like PowerPoint, or to make examples for students, or put up on the Internet for people to download and listen on their iPods.