Top 100 Tools for Learning Spring 2008

Top 100 Tools for Learning Spring 2008
Final ranking as at 31 March 2008

I agree with many of these. The top one is rather useless from my perspective. I have always faired better with refined and targeted Google searches than any so-called delicious bookmark list.

As for the Goolgle Reader, I have not tried it, but a news feeder is rather straight forward. Maybe it is on the list because no one has tried any other news feeders and they simply love the idea of being fed.

Firefox as a tool is a bit of a stretch. Actually, Firefox plugins should be listed there instead, since these are the real power of this browser. With plugins you can customize the tools available from within your browser until your browser almost becomes another operating system within your operating system (whether Linux, Windows or Mac).

Well, well! Powerpoint? Again, like with the feeder, perhaps the people meant the category of programs rather than the program in particular. Afterall, if people barely know how to turn on their computers they will probably only use what was pre-installed with their system, which if their os is Windows then they likely have MSOffice if any office software. They should try Open Office's presentation element. You can even export to PDF without additional software.

I am proud to see Audacity on the list of the top 10! I reccomend this program to all of my students for a recording project I assign them. It is a great little program that runs on both Linux and Windows.

I think someone from Google has been poisoning this list. Google Docs is terrible. I want to view the whole book! Most of the best books are only partials. The books that are whole are already freely available in the best repositories and can be downloaded directly to your computer so you can read them anytime you like.

Ah! Moodle, originally for Linux, is truly an excellent resource for building an educational site for your students and staff. I have yet seen one as complete or as easy to install and set up.

While YouTube is fun and useful for quick and dirty videos of certain themes you may be teaching on, it is a waste of time for serious work. But I still use it for fun.

This list is worth exploring, so I would reccomend setting aside a Saturday and trying these out. Don't forget to keep a list of what you like. Otherwise, you may really forget to use them even if they are installed on your system.