Free Web-Based Software

This week I was introduced to a number of free web-based softwares! 3 of them were office suite sites and 3 of them were image editing sites. Of the 3 office suites, I use one of them daily during the school year; Google Documents. This paired with Google Drive and its capabilities, access-abilities, and comparabilities with my colleagues is unmatched by the other 2 sites. I found that I could create similar documents, presentations, and share information on all 3 sites, but that the Google Drive, due to being in place and used so frequently at work, was worth keeping. What these free office suites give us, is the ability to create documents, and presentations without having to purchase a software, and automatically save the work created online. I have a Drive folder directly on my desktop, and thanks to that folder, had minimal damage and lost work when my hard drive crashed this June. Thank you Google Drive!
The other 3 sites were for image editing. Being an art teacher, and naturally loving to explore these sites and play with how they worked, there were 2 that stood out; FotoFlexer and Phixr. I have been searching for free software that has image editing capabilities, was user friendly, and had similar filters and tools as Adobe Photoshop. I am a huge Adobe Creative Suite fan, and use it very frequently, however the software comes with a price tag, and for my middle schoolers it just wasn't practical. Each of my middle schoolers has a chrome book, which is a great advantage! Chrome books have little memory, and putting a program such as photoshop onto them would not work. Both FotoFlexer and Phixr both had great filters, with levels of opacity, contrast, color choice, and many other options that could be shifted for the viewers liking. At first, I thought Phixr was easier to maneuver, but the longer I played with FotoFlexer the more I liked how the filters were applied. I will be introducing both of these to my students this fall, to simplify images for drawing and painting! Check these 2 out!


FotoFlexer

Phixr