Free tools for Education
First off, I’m happy to have written this while on a plane. I'm posting now that I'm in the Detroit airport - using my phone as a modem.
One of my peers recently built a PowerPoint deck that focuses on all the solutions we literally give away that are valuable to education. The resulting list is longer than you might expect. In the last year we have made significant investments in education including Microsoft Student (not free, but very cool). The following list comes from the slide deck I mentioned plus I added a few. The sort order starts with things focused directly on education and ends with free tools that benefit customers in education.
Windows Live @ EDU
Education Pack for Tablet PC
Shared Computer Toolkit
Learning Essentials for Office
Sharepoint Web Parts and Site Templates for Teachers/Classrooms
Office Templates for Education
Calculator Plus
Windows Movie Maker
Photostory
Producer
Windows Live Safety
Windows Defender
Desktop Search
MSN Messenger
MSN Spaces
Virtual Server Enterprise
TechNet Virtual Labs
Visual Studio Express
SQL Express
Office Live Basic
Online training for developers and users
Office Viewers, Office resources such as ClipArt, PowerToys, Windows Mobile Add-Ins, TabletPC Add-Ins, Migration Tools, and on and on.. Feel free to add more through comments!