Electric: Electrical CAD system

Electric is a sophisticated electrical CAD system that can handle many forms of circuit design, including:

• Custom IC layout (ASICs)
• Schematic drawing
• Hardware description language specifications 

It is a free and open software and works in windows, mac or linux operating systems! It can be downloaded from here. 

If you need to see the manual of the program, please go here. If you need more help, please go here.

Note taking software

There is something which both teachers and students need urgently everyday – note taking software. Both of them need something easy to use but quick to open and write on.

Today we are presenting another free and open source software about note taking – QOwnNotes.

QownNotes is the open source (GPL) plain-text notepad with markdown support and todo list manager for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, that (optionally) works together with the notes application of ownCloud.

• You own your own notes! All notes are stored as plain-text files on your desktop computer.
• Sync them over devices (desktop & mobile) with ownCloud.

So you are able to write down your thoughts with QOwnNotes and edit or search for them later from your mobile device (like with CloudNotes) or the ownCloud web-service.

If you need more information just go to their own site: QOwnNotes. If you want to download it, just press installation on the same page.

Gimp - The Image Manipulation Program

Photo taking is becoming a habit for many people since it is readily available on mobile phones. Most people like photos as we are living in the “selfie era”. Teachers and students too are part and parcel of today's society.

Now when it comes to class, both teachers and students would like to change some aspects of the photo. They need an open source program which is not difficult to learn yet it makes it possible to manipulate photos according to their educational needs.

A picture says a million words somebody said one day.  They are a wonderful tool in the classroom. An example would be that of a conversation starter or else to help students write in a different way ie a series of photos from different angles of the same object would help them to avoid repeating the same ideas or sentences. A photo of a strange animal or plant would obviously break down any misunderstanding and would help the teacher immensely. A photo can help the students understand people of far away countries together with their lives, culture and experiences.

Teachers do understand that most resources did not originate from educational spheres so it's understandable the need to tune them in to educational needs. Hence image manipulation comes in very handy.

We present gimp, the program which has been going on for these last 20 years!!! If you need tutorials, documentation and to download it, one finds everything in one page. Just click on the link below.

http://www.gimp.org/

Open Teacher

It is a small program which helps teacher revise some concepts, ideas, vocabulary or past lessons done with students. It helps students to revise their lessons too! It could be used by both of them. The questions could be asked in a random manner so it would discourage anybody from knowing beforehand the following question!

If you want to download a copy just click here, for tutorials to overcome the initial fear of trying a new program, click here. FAQ (Frequently asked questions) section, just click here. If you're interested to see how others view the program than go here. Another opinion is found here.

The advantages of the program are several. It can read several formats of files (29). One can create a topography or media lesson. One can create a lesson from a picture, any other file or from the internet! There is typing tutor where both teachers and students could improve their speed of writing in a computer file. It could be installed on windows, mac and linux operating systems.