An Archive manager or Compression Utility allows you to view and manipulate compressed archives such as a ZIP or GZIP file.

Windows

A good open-source archive manager is 7-Zip. Alternatively a trial edition of WinRAR can be downloaded. If you are running Windows XP, the built-in system supports ZIP files already.

All of these will run whenever a supported archive file is run (double-clicked) and will let you extract the contents to a location on your computer.

Linux

The default vanilla GNU command-line binaries provide full flexibility for manipulating archives; consult the man pages that came with your distribution (e.g. tar -z extracts a gzipped tarball). Alternatively there are several GUI frontends specific to your distro or Window Manager (e.g. Ark is a popular GUI frontend on KDE).

These will let you extract the contents of an archive to a location on your computer.

Apple Mac

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Open source, free sound recorder and editor. Useful for putting sound recordings on the VLE. Optional LAME component adds MP3 export capabilities.

Download From School Servers 2.21 MB
MD5 Sum: 5a8d48ebfdb0c50e2243668790670536

1. Save the EXE file to your computer
2. Execute the downloaded audacity-win-1.2.4b.exe and follow the on-screen instructions.

Download From School Servers 372 KB
MD5 Sum: 3da221d349004075c4e6a499675eb021

1. Save the ZIP file to your computer
2. Extract it to C:\Program Files\Audacity\, or the appropriate location if Audacity was installed elsewhere (you will need an Archive Manager)
3. Launch Audacity, and open the Edit » Preferences... dialog box
4. Navigate to the File Formats tab
5. Under MP3 Export Setup click Find Library and Yes
6. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Audacity\lame3.98a6\
7. Choose lame_enc.dll and click Open
8. In the current dialog, verify that MP3 Library Version is LAME v3.98
9. You may now save audio files in MP3 format as used by the VLE via File » Export As MP3...

Visit Audacity project website for latest version.

If this is impractical for you to download, please contact IT Support who will be happy to provide you with this software on CD free of charge.

A versatile graphing program designed for schools. Features Euclidean as well as Statistical plotting in 2D as well as basic 3D graphing.

Download From School Servers 174 MB
MD5 Sum: e25fbe073c1547fb46681dc7a555af2a

1. Save the ZIP file to your computer
2. Extract it to a temporary location (you will need an Archive Manager)
3. Execute Autography 3.20/setup.exe in the extracted folder and follow the on-screen instructions.
4. You will be prompted for a serial number; enter: 327885737YTD
5. If this is impractical for you to download, please contact IT Support who will be happy to provide you with this software on CD free of charge.

Derive is a versatile computer algebra package that allows exploration and visualisation of GCSE and A-level maths solutions including algebra, calculus and 3D graphs, including worked solutions.

Download From School Servers 54 MB
MD5 Sum: a6c9eba91d76eec594068288b0e3e17c

1. Save the ZIP file to your computer
2. Extract it to a temporary location (you will need an Archive Manager)
3. Execute Derive 6/setup.exe in the extracted folder and follow the on-screen instructions.
4. You will be prompted for a serial number; enter: 37Z2-M72P-DGME-X7L26
5. If this is impractical for you to download, please contact IT Support who will be happy to provide you with this software on CD free of charge.

Eduforge is an open access environment designed for the sharing of ideas, research outcomes, open content and open source software for education. It is a collaborative development environment, community and resource catalogue for software developers involved in community-driven educational software projects.

Similar to Schoolforge, it's a good place to look for interesting, useful and even revolutionary open-source projects and community-driven software.

http://eduforge.org/

http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=628&catID=594

Allows you to quickly search and access "crawled" portions of the Internet and World Wide Web, using a few words or Keyphrases.

http://www.google.com/

Currently the most popular and well-known web page indexing and searching service, as well as boasting the highest "relevancy" thanks to advanced natural language and AI techniques, it also sports several relatively advanced search features that allow you to further refine your search by resource type and date, for example.

Interesting features of the web search itself include separate interfaces depending on the type of internet-held information you are searching (news, images, etc), an effective page ranking system, and even an in-built spell checker. Equally fascinating is the first result for "miserable failure".

GraphCalc is a powerful OpenSource mathematical graphing calculator and equation manipulator.

"GraphCalc is an all-in-one solution to everything from everyday arithmetic to statistical analysis, from betas to Booleans, from cubes to calculus, from decimals to derivatives. GraphCalc combines all the features of a professional mathematics package with the simplicity of an easy to learn windows interface. It provides user-friendly help and tutorials to guide you through the easy and fun process of mastering GraphCalc."

Download from School Servers:

Graphcalc for Windows 841.8KB
MD5 Sum: c181a8014395702310313706705b0f66

1. Save the EXE file to your computer
2. Run it and follow the instructions on-screen to install.

Graphcalc for Linux 52.6KB
MD5 Sum: c772d76be921d6b78b4e3092ae48e594

1. Save the BZIP tarball to your computer
2. Extract it to a temporary location (you will need an Archive Manager)
3. Follow the instrucions in the graphcalc/INSTALL and graphcalc/README textfiles.

Visit GraphCalc project website for latest version.

If this is impractical for you to download, please contact IT Support who will be happy to provide you with this software on CD free of charge.