I am a Training Manager
for a software company based in Portland, OR. My focus
is on ‘Social Learning’ or ‘Learning 2.0’ or ‘Informal
Learning’ – whichever you prefer to call it. As a
member of the
local chapter of ASTD, I head up the
Social Learning SIG (Special Interest Group),
focusing on what it is and how to use it. I also have
my own blog on this subject,
www.EngagedLearning.net. I will be speaking at
ASTD’s TechKnowledge 2008 next week, the eLearning
Guild’s conference in April during the Learning
Management Colloquium, and at the State of Oregon’s
training convention in May – all on Social Learning. My work is partially
focused on using these tools and helping others use
and adopt them.
Kevin's Top 10 Tools as at
20 February 2008
Firefox
– IE doesn’t even
come close. I have been able to do SO much with
the add-ons that it has become invaluable to
me. People come by all the time and say, “Wow!
Your browser can do that?” More than visually
impressive, it has saved me a lot of headaches!
Google Reader
– Used every day. Simple, quick and connected
to my other Google tools.
Gmail
– Although I use Outlook for work, Gmail is my
choice for personal. The conversational
grouping is easy.
De.licio.us
– The Firefox plug in for De.licio.us makes this
easy as well. As you can tell, I am all about
ease.
Google Calendar
– Managing a number of calendars in one without
sharing was a pain before Google Calendars. Now
I can share parts of a calendar with some, keep
some private and we can all be on the same page.
Google Docs
– Same here: all on the same page. No more
emailing docs back and forth. And for school (I
am going through my Masters) this simplified
group projects and kept meetings to a minimum.
Clearspace
– I have come to love using this within our
organization. Created by Jive Software here in
Portland, OR, this integrates blogs, wikis,
forums, RSS and more so that we can better
collaborate and work together.
Audacity
– Although I don’t use it very often, any time
it comes to manipulating sound it quickly does
the job.
PicLens
– It is an add-on
to Firefox and it has saved me a BUNCH of time.
I look for pictures a lot and nothing beats
this.
RocketDock
– By Punk Software. Quick and easy access to my
most used programs and files.
What are your
Top 10 Tools for learning? Let us know and help us to build
the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008
