Open Source Applications

     After some reading and watching youtube videos I think I have a basic understanding on Open Source Applications. Basically they are programs that you can download but are able to access the code. It kind of reminded of me of a wiki for programmers. The code can be changed by anyone that has access to it to improve the program. This is different than just free or proprietary applications. These applications you cannot access the code and change the program. What you buy is what you get.
     According to the open source initiative there are a few licenses that an open source app can apply for. First the program must go through a public review process by an application and then it can be licensed. The most common licenses are the GNU or General Public License, BSD, MIT license, Mozilla public license and a few others.
     While I was researching educational open source applications I found many cool free programs. I thought since I was a math teacher I might look more into what can be applied into my classroom.  The first one I researched a little about last semester. It is called GeoGebra. If any of you are familiar with Geometer's Sketchpad it is very similar. It is known as dynamic math software. This means that you can make drawings or graphs and manipulate them to figure out properties of the shapes or graphs. It also shows the measurements of angles and length of sides so students can see how the measurements change as they change the figure. The second application that I saw that looked cool is called GraphCalc. It is a free graphing calculator. It seemed more user friendly than the others I looked at. It had nice menus and would explain what each button did. It has the capabilities to graph up to 6 equations at once using a different color for each. It can save the past expressions that you have typed in for future reference and even has several constants already programmed in. It sounds like it has many of the capabilities of a normal graphing calculator but it is free. I definitely plan on playing with this before I go back to teaching. Anything to save money for this technologically savvy teacher.