I have been working in education and
training for over 25 years and last 10 years been providing
consultancy to businesses and education.
In 2007 I set up the Centre for Learning
& Performance Technologies a free resource about learning
trends, technologies and tools. This includes a Directory
of Learning Tools that now holds details of over 2,000 tools
that can be used for learning and performance support purposes.
Every day I post about a new item of
interest on her blog usually a new tool
There are now so many tools available -
what are the best?
Slide 3: Top 10 Tools for Learning
July 2007 I asked this simple question of
my learning colleagues
I didnt know what to expect
Jay Cross kicked it off
Slide 4
Over 100 people responded
Although many well known many are
practitioners from academia or workplace learning
They are not all LT specialists but
rather normal people using the technology in their daily lives
Slide 5: Some facts
Some facts about the people and tools
involved
Can't cover all the tools so will mention
only a few selected tools
Slide 6: Top 10 Tools
First of all the Top 10 Tools
Slide 7: Top 3 Tools
No 1 was Firefox - for many it was key
enabler for everything they did; it was their window on the web;
it was akin to an operating system. IE adn Safari also
appeared on the list but lower down. FF is "more than a
web browser" because of the 100s of add-ins that it supports
(e.g. Zotero, Firebug, ScribeFire and so on)
No 2 was delicious - social bookmarking
tool - people no longer storing bookmarks in their browsers but
online, where they can categorise/tag them and share them with
others, e.g. students,. colleagues etc. Searchable
resource to find other useful sites.
No 3 was a tie. Google Search - the
ultimate e-learning tool - if you had a question, you simply
Google-it. Skype is "IM on steroids" as it supports VoIP -
ie voice calls between colleagues, students, etc
Slide 8: Top 5-10 Tools
No 5 was PowerPoint, the first "true"
content development tool, and the basis for other tools,
although for many multi-functional
No 6 was Wordpress - blogging tool for
personal and professional blogging, e.g. reflecting on learning
or focus for learning for a group of people
No 7 was another tie: Gmail,
web-based email with large storage capacity and Google Reader, a
place to aggregate and manage RSS feeds.
No 9 was Blogger another blogging tool
No 10 another base tool for creating
content, Word
Slide 9; Personal Learning
Many of these tools had in common was
that they are tools to manager your own personal learning.
No longer are people relying on LMS to manage their learning,
but are doing it with tools of their own choice.
This includes social networks (like
Facebook) and productivity tools like Google tools
Slide 10: Google tools
Google tools dominated the list as can be
seen here - and what they also have in common are they are free
Slide 11: Free v Commercial tools
75% of tools are free - open source,
freeware, litware or online services. Being free is
important but allows you to explore safely and at no cost to
find what you really want. Alhough no such thing as a free
lunch as some of the larger server-based tools do require some
config and customisation, but most tools are easy to use.
Slide 12: Producer tools
Content development tools of all kinds on
the list
Slide 13: Popular free producer tools
4 interesting tools
Audacity - open source cross-platform
sound recorder and editor, makes creation of an MP3 podcast very
easy
Moodle is an open source CMS - miles
ahead of nearest competitor Blackboard, and no corporate LMS on
the list
Wikispaces was the top wiki tool - for
collaborative writing, working and learning
Ning lets you create private social
networks for groups of people, e.g Jay Cross' InternetTime
group, and Classroom 2.0 for educators interested in using Web
2.0 technologies in the classroom
Slide 14: Popular free file hosting
and sharing tools
These tools make it easy to share photos
(FLIckr), documents (Scribd), videos (YOuTube and TeacherTube)
as well as presentations (slideshare)
Embed code into web/blog page to create a
great resource very esily
Slide 15: Popular commercial producer
tools
Captivate for creating software demos/screencasts
Articulate for creating narrated
presentations/rapid e-learning content
Dreamweaver for web authoring
Elluminate for web conferencing
Slide 16: Summary
The fact that these tools are on the
desktop AND being used for learning purposes makes them VERY
powerful tools
Resource of Top 10/100 Tools has provided
valuable
Slide 17
View individual contributor lists or
aggregated lists for each tool
Slide 18: What makes a tool popular
Collaborative and sharable is becoming
key
As is the cost
People passionate about their tools -
when did you last hear people talk like that about enterprise or
other learning tools?
Slide 19: Summary PDF
All lists available online or as PDF
Slide 20: Top Tools for Learning 2008
Now building this years list.
Slide 21:
Please contribute your Top 10 Tools list
Reviews
Karyn Romeis reviews Jane Hart's
presentation at the
Learning Technology's conference, 14 February 2008
