Top Ten Tools: 2008 Update

http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/top-ten-tools-2008-update/

Jane Hart has asked a number of people to update their lists of favorite tools, for either e-learning or personal learning and working. I haven’t changed too much from last year’s list, but I have made a few adjustments.

1. Firefox:
Firefox is the first application I start in the morning, and it stays open basically all day. It’s the way I access most of the rest of the tools on this list.

2. Google Reader:
Google Reader is my RSS reader of choice. Last month I wrote about how RSS is one of my primary personal learning tools. Reading RSS feeds gives me a constant flow of information to absorb and a route to interact with so many great people in the blogosphere.

3. WordPress:
WordPress.com is my blogging platform and therefore another important tool for personal learning. What I learned about learning in 2007 is how much RSS and blogging really have enhanced my own lifelong learning efforts.

4. Gmail:
Gmail is a productivity tool for me more than a learning tool, but it is one of my favorites and I use it constantly.

5. Google Docs & Spreadsheets:
Google Docs is one of the main tools for collaborating with SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) during the course development process.

6. Dreamweaver:
Dreamweaver is where nearly all of the final content I develop for courses is created. The content from the Google Docs with SMEs is put into webpages, then those webpages are used within our LMS. It’s not the typical process flow, but it works for our instructor-led graduate courses.

7. Captivate:
Captivate is how I develop self-paced e-learning content that is embedded within the instructor-led courses. Sometimes this is as simple as a graphic or flow chart with rollovers or hotspots; sometimes it’s a complex branching scenario. Captivate’s a good tool for all of it.

8. Diigo:
Diigo is my primary social bookmarking tool and how I generate my daily bookmark posts for my blog. I do so much online research for both the courses I develop and for my own personal learning; a good system to track all the resources I find is indispensable. Diigo’s also improved a lot since I started using it, and they’ve learned to take user feedback seriously.

9. Skype:
Working from home, Skype is one of my connecting lines to the world. I use it to chat with and call SMEs as well as the other members of the online course development team.

10. Toodledo:
I track everything I need to do for developing courses and personal tasks in Toodledo. The ability to sort tasks into contexts (work, home, blog, etc.) as well as folders (one for each course or project) means I can stay organized without getting overwhelmed. This is my personal project management tool.