One of my favorite programs is Geogebra. I discovered it years ago when one of my students was submitting superior graphics in a geometry class in typeset work; I asked her what software she was using and how she found it. She said “Geogebra. I just googled ‘free geometry software’.”
Duh.
Geogebra keeps getting better. Still free. If you haven’t tried it, you can do so and learn more at http://geogebra.org/cms/.
At the Joint Math Meetings in Boston in January 2012, I met Marc Renault of Shippensburg University. He was presenting a poster on his work with Geogebra in which he has used the program to create a library of applets for calculus I. You can find the library at http://webspace.ship.edu/msrenault/GeoGebraCalculus/GeoGebraCalculusApplets.html; I’ve linked to several of these applets in the calculus text I’m writing, taking advantage of the .pdf format to have live links for students to follow.
He’s an amazing GeoGebra author. I’d also recommend GeoGebraTube, which has a searchable interface and 14,000 (and growing) sketches. Some of my favorite tube authors: http://mathhombre.blogspot.com/2012/03/geogebra-stars.html
My GGB resources: http://mathhombre.blogspot.com/p/geogebra.html
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