TOP 10 TOOLS 2008 & 2009
Patricia Donaghy

I teach ICT to a wide range of students at Inchicore College of Further Education in Dublin, Ireland.  In addition, I am the ICT co-ordinator in the college. This means that I am also the Network, VLE and Website Administrator. Recently joined the blogsphere in July 2007.  I strongly support the use of quality open source and free software in education. Hence, all my tools fall into this category!  I blog at pdonaghy.edublogs.org

Patricia's Top 10 Tools as at 10 May 2009

1. Audacity

2. Blogger / Edublogs

3. Delicious

4. Google Apps

5. Google Reader

6. Moodle

7. Nvu

8. Printkey2000

9. Twitter

10. Wikispaces

Patricia's Top 10 Tools as at 11 August 2008

The same as January's list except:

8. Twitter - a great addition to any PLE. Twitter is very useful for communicating in real time. You can easily share information, resources, ideas, questions and feedback. An excellent tool for extending your learning network.

Patricia's Top 10 Tools as at 17 January 2008

1. ALISON - ALISON provides high quality multimedia courseware, covering certifiable courses such as the ECDL. All this is free for individual learners. This type of product could go someway to bridging the digital divide.

2. Audacity - Audacity is easy to use for recording and editing sound files. It is a handy program for creating podcasts, especially for beginners in this area.

3. Delicious - Extremely useful tool for book marking and categorising interesting websites. It is very easy to access through the browser buttons. I also like the included searching, networking and subscribing features.

4. Edublogs - This is a great blog hosting platform devoted specifically to education. New features are being continually added. The site administrators genuinely respond to user requests, feedback and suggestions. It is an excellent tool for both personal blogs and/or classroom oriented blogs. It is also great for networking with other educators.

5. Google Apps - Google Apps provides many features all in the one place. A customisable start page. Generous 6MB of space in provided in the gmail account. Files can easily be backed up to the email account – very useful for students uploading work. Shared calendar feature with text messaging provided. Use your own domain name to provide domain specific email addresses. We use our google apps home page as the portal to all our college eLearning facilities

6. Moodle - Moodle is a feature rich course management system (CMS) and an excellent tool for setting up a virtual learning environment (VLE). Good for uploading student work and for providing grades and feedback. Easy to add all sorts of resources. Also includes useful blog and wiki features.

7. NVU - The familiar WYSIWYG interface of NVU makes it very easy for students to create web pages without the need to master HTML directly.  In addition, having access to the HTML code and a CSS editor is very useful for engaging the more advanced students

8. Qedoc - This is much more than just quiz making software. With over 90 question types available, Qedoc can be used to build meaningful interactive learning content. You are limited only by your own imagination and time available. Sharing of created modules on the related Qedoc wiki site is a real added bonus.

9. Printkey2000 - A very useful screen capture program, images not video,  that I have been using for years. Easily activated by selecting the Print Screen key on the keyboard.

10. Ulteo Online Desktop - I think Ulteo is a taste of things to come. Ulteo provides access to many useful open source applications all from your own personalised desktop. No need to worry about installing or updating the software. This is all done for you. Simply logon and start working. Collaboration is also provided through sharing the desktop or your OpenOffice session. Essentially, access your desktop and files from any computer in the world – you don’t even need to own your own. My top tool for 2008!