TOP TOOLS 2007 & 2008
Audrey J Williams

Audrey J Williams is Director of Educational Technology Services at Pellissippi State Technical Community College in Knoxville, TN.  She blogs at Teaching with Technology.

Audrey's Top 10 Tools as at 2 October 2008

1. Firefox: All of my online tools live here. So do I. With the right mix of add-ons, it works well. Currently, my favorite Firefox add-ons are: Scribefire, Delicious and TwitKit

2. delicious: I continue to rely on having all of my bookmarks accessible from any online computer, searchable, tagged, shareable and the Inbox feature bringing in more. It helps me keep current and lets me easily find my "past" Using RSS for tags allow me to create custom and updated resources lists of links for classes, faculty and peers. Free.

3. Skitch: This continues to be a daily tool for me in my faculty training/support role. Truly defines the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand kb of words” Mac only. Free.

4. Tumblr: This low threshold tool is becoming a fast favorite for getting faculty “gently” into blogging. It is fast and stable and not as overwhelming as Wordpress for the true beginner blogger. Also, it is a nice clean way to share selected videos without the distraction of YouTube comments and recommendations. Free.

5. TypeIt4Me: A Mac application that takes a key combination you set and expands out a complete text entry with no effort. It is great for those long detailed instructions you have to send over and over again to students or faculty. Not Free.

6. RichFLV: Adobe AIR based Flash editor that allows me to snip FLV files into smaller segments. Free.

7. SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer): This freeware (Windows only) provides a graphical user interface to ffmpeg, MEncoder, mplayer, x264, mppenc, ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn. I have thrown all kinds of audio and video through it to convert and it just cranks the stuff out. It has saved me quite a few times when someone REALLY needs THIS video in THAT format. Free.

8. Jing: I have been going to this more and more for the quick and dirty training videos much in the same way I use Skitch. When words and screencaptures won’t do it, a quick video will. Love Camtasia for full-blown training videos but Jing gets the job done fast when I need to do it fast. Free.

9. 1Password: As I use more and more web services, I have a plethora of usernames/passwords. I needed a password manager and 1Password does it for me. Mac Only. Not Free.

10. Google Groups: As a new director, I am trying to centralize some of the departments information and data collection. We are experimenting with Google Groups as an option so I am using it more and more. We’ll see. Free.

Audrey's Top 10 Tools as at 29 January 2008

1. Firefox - all of my online tools work with it and with the right extensions, it just works for me. Free.

2. del.icio.us - I have come to rely on having all of my bookmarks accessible from any online computer, searchable, tagged, shareable and the "Links For You" feature bringing in more. It helps me keep current and lets me easily find my "past" Using RSS for tags allow me to create custom and updated resources lists of links for classes, faculty and peers. Free.

3. Feed2JS.org - An online site (mirrored by some other helpful folks) that provides a fast, easy and customizable way to convert RSS feeds into javascript that can be used in course management systems, portals, blogs and more. I find myself using it more and more and telling my faculty about it all of the time. Free.

4. TypeIt4Me - A Mac application that takes a key combination you set and expands out a complete text entry with no effort. It is great for those long detailed instructions you have to send over and over again to students or faculty. Not Free.

5. Skitch - A Mac only screenshot application that makes annotations easy and, well, fun. With our adoption of a new course management system last year, I used this almost daily in the fall to make a quick screenshot of an online course and provide step by step directions to faculty trying to accomplish a task. With other new technology projects, it is a great way for me to show other technologists what I am trying to explain. A picture really is worth 1000 kb of words. Free.

6. Uniblogs - I send so many faculty to edublogs and their students to uniblogs to their blogging delight. The set up is easy and their support/training site is strong! While we could set up blogging on campus, students creating content that is outside of the confines of the school feels like a good idea and it certainly is a way for them to really take ownership of their work even after the course is over. Free. Thanks Mr. Farmer!

7. Elluminate - For training between campuses as well as virtual office hours, I have come to really love Elluminate's flexibility and power. The fact that the experience is the same for both Mac and PC users is also a very strong selling point for me. Not free.

8. CutePDF Writer - The easiest to install free PDF creator that I can recommend to my colleagues and friends who use Windows and do not have (or cannot get) Adobe Acrobat. It takes a bit to explain how to use it but after going through it once, everyone gets it and loves having the PDF option right on their own computer. Free.

9. SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) - This freeware (Windows only) provides a graphical user interface to ffmpeg, MEncoder, mplayer, x264, mppenc, ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn. I have thrown all kinds of audio and video through it to convert and it just cranks the stuff out. It has saved me quite a few times when the original version of a video is not long around but someone REALLY needs it in this format. Free.

10. Tumblr - The best microblogging site for me. I use it for new bloggers who are not sure if they even want to enter the blogosphere because it is so non-threatening. I tell them it is like bookmarking on steroids. Personally, I find myself using Tumblr a lot more to store videos (primarily) for presentations so I don't have to maneuver through YouTube ,Vimeo, Google Video, etc. I simply go to my Tumblr site and there they are, nice and neat and ready to show. Using it as a way to funnel RSS feeds into one mega-feed is also a nice option but the limit on the number of feeds has thwarted me a time or two. Free.

Audrey's Top 10 Tools as at 24 July 2007

1. del.icio.us - the ease of sharing links between colleagues and friends is outstanding. Using RSS for tags allow me to create custom and updated resources lists of links for classes, faculty and peers.

2. WordPress - t is the easiest blogging platform IMHO. The plugin and widget architecture is great and there is a strong and active user community.

3. Netvibes - The tool actually might be RSS (I call it really slick stuff) Netvibes is my favorite RSS reader and my all around "start my day" tool (I am pulling in other tools to this central location as well like flickr and GMail)

4. flickr - photo sharing, tags, geotags, RSS, groups, collections, sets...need I say more?

5. Audacity - while there are other great audio programs, you cannot beat the functionality for the price!

6. JW FLV Player - a wonderful Creative Commons licensed player for Flash video files. Levels the playing field for offering video on the web for all platforms and browsers.

7. Firefox - my browser of choice. Once it is set up with my favorite extensions, it really makes the web experience much more pleasant, easy and efficient

8. Dreamweaver - I am still building lots of HTML pages and sites. This tool makes that easy for me

9. Camtasia - the ease of creating screen movies along with the power of annotations, closed captions and a variety of output options make it a strong part of my toolbelt.

10. Quicksilver - this might be a cheat but this is a tool that I WANT to use more. I'm still trying to get my head around how it works and how to best incorporate it into my workflow but it has potential to really be a big help