Programs and Links
This section contains several links to tools and resources you may find helpful throughout the semester. I'll add more as I discover, think of them, or think they'll help you.
Rebecca Moore Howard Bibliographies
CLICK HERE to access Rebecca Moore Howard's enormous amount of bibliographies for future research on any of the topics you may be considering writing about.
The Purdue OWL
Need to look up a small quirk about formatting during a session? Any questions about how things are formatted whatsoever? The Purdue OWL is there to help! This is a massively helpful resource both for your own work as a writer, and your work in this course and the FSU RWC as a writing tutor. Make sure to bookmark the Purdue OWL, and use it as a part of any Google queries you need to make about formatting to get results from them.
Create Your Own Free Adobe Creative Suite
Can't make it to the Digital Studio? Don't have access to the Adobe Creative Suite? Don't want to spend a ton of money to do professional-grade work for this course? Good news! You don't need to do any of that to design great texts for this course! The article linked by clicking that icon to the left tells you how to access free and/or open-source alternatives to every major Adobe program. No excuses, everyone! Make sure you're using the right tools for your projects!
Lynda.com
This is a fantastic resource you have access to through FSU, so take advantage of it! Virtually any program you could ever need to use has a tutorial on Lynda.com (though, ironically, probably not Twine...), and it's extremely helpful and thorough. For any video/audio/image editing software you might need, there's an extremely good chance you'll find the information you need here. The icon on the left will take you to a link to a guide for accessing/using Lynda.com I create during my stint as an administrator in that space this last year. I strongly urge you to make use of this resource during your time at FSU.
Canva
Want to make attractive-looking handouts, page layouts, and more? Want to make them free, in a browser, and with a lot of really aesthetically-pleasing templates to start from? Look no further than Canva! It has some noteworthy limits with working with large chunks of text, but as a starting-point, it works exceptionally well, and is also extremely easy to use. It's essentially a stripped-down, web-based version of InDesign, and the best substitute for it I've found. Strongly recommended for simple page design jobs.
Photoshop
No, I'm not suggesting you drop hundreds of dollars on this software, however, I am going to link to the free demos available. Photoshop is professional-grade software for editing images and is insanely powerful. An amazing tool to use/access. I recommend getting familiar with it and seeking out places on campus to use it, like the Digital Studio and Strozier Library. If you want to do something involving editing an image, there's a 99.9% chance that if it's possible, Photoshop can do it.
Pixlr
It's free, it's cloud-based, it runs in a browser, it requires no money or software installations to run (when used on Chrome or any Flash-enabled browser, anyway). What more could you ask for??? Well.... the fancy features of Photoshop, certainly, but for most contexts outside of major practices, this will fill your image editing needs very well. Being free and cross-platform makes this tool exceptionally useful.
Gimp
Tragic name, awesome software. GiMP is available for Mac, PC, and Linux, it's 100% free, it's open source, and it doesn't require an internet connection to use. It's a bit more powerful than Pixlr, but also a bit less simple and user-friendly. Worth looking into if you want photo editing software to call your own but don't want to pony up the dough to Adobe for Photoshop.
Photoshop Express
A stripped-down version of Photoshop that's cloud-based and browser-based like Pixlr. Worth playing with for basic image editing, but nothing too fancy or remotely comparable to the "real" Photoshop.
WeVideo
Want to edit video but don't feel like downloading a program for it? Say hello to this web-based video editing service, WeVideo! I haven't used it myself but know colleagues who use it in their own classrooms. A great solution for anyone looking to edit video from the cloud, from multiple computers, without needing to copy files all over the place.
Windows Live Movie Maker
Relatively simple and easy to use, Windows Live Movie Maker will let you edit together video should you choose to do so on your Windows Computer without needing to pay any money. It's not the best video editor out there, but it is perfectly serviceable.
Issuu
Want to embed a print-based document in PDF form online? Issuu has you covered! Check out the site and what they have to offer should you ever need to bring a print-based document into an online space and/or embed it somewhere.