TOP 10 TOOLS 2008
Ed Lamaster

Ed is a Senior Business Systems Analyst for Health Net.  He is responsible for distance learning technologies, process improvements, converting ILT to WBT, and web conferencing technologies.  His background in elementary school teaching, systems engineering, and radio broadcasting. Ed is based in the Sacramento, California (US) area

Ed's Top 10 Tools as at 15 February 2008

1. Adobe Captivate - Best price/performance capture, course creation tool.  Waiting for a simulation development tool that does more, but doesn't cost an arm and a  leg.

2. Adobe Dreamweaver - Until our IT department let us buy this, we were stuck trying to create HTML in Microsoft Word.

3. Articulate Presenter - Great tool for PowerPoint conversions, especially for quick turnaround compliance course creation.

4. Articulate Quizmaker - Just plain works when you pair this with Articulate Presenter.  Need standard knowledge checks in your presentation?  Works well all the time.

5. Audacity - Why spend limited funds on a commercial tool that won't do all this free one does?  

6. CourseLab - I like this course creation tool mainly because it is free, and it's potention to drive down the ridiculous cost of some commercial course development tools.  The 2.4 version fixes some issues with previous versions.

7. Google Docs - We use the spreadsheet function to keep track of LMS vendor issues, with all the admins contributing.  We use the presentations function to storyboard with clients and among ourselves.

8. Microsoft Powerpoint - The foundation of all rapid development. Everybody has this, and it just works.  When converting from ILT to WBT, the tool forces you to rethink what's really important and teach to it rather than produce volumes of paper training manuals.

9. Paint Shop Pro - The most "approachable" picture editor for my use.

10. SnagIt - The one tool that every trainer MUST have in his/her toolbox.