Jane Hart has posted a summary of the Top 100 Learning Tools of 2007 and opened the polls for the top tools of 2008. Jane and I have already picked our top 10; you can add your favorites here.
Here are the top 20 choices of 2007:
1 Firefox Web browser (free)
2 del.icio.us Social bookmarking tool (free)
3 Skype Instant messaging, VoIP tool (free)
4 Google Search Web search tool (free)
5 PowerPoint Presentation software
6 Wordpress Blogging tool (free)
7 Gmail Web-based email (free)
8 Google Reader RSS/Feed reader (free)
9 Blogger Blogging tool (free)
10 Word Word processing software
11 Audacity Sound editor and recorder (free)
12 Bloglines RSS/Feed reader (free)
Jane had asked, “What are your 10 favourite tools for your personal learning/working or for creating learning for others?”
She did not ask about eLearning, but except for PowerPoint and Word, these are all web tools. Of course, PowerPoint is often used for rapid eLearning, and Word (“the most used authoring tool in the world”) writes HTML, so in a sense, these are all web tools. With the exception of the Microsoft Office products, every tool is free. Furthermore, I never read a manual to learn how to use any of the freebies.
With the exception of PowerPoint, all of the top dozen tools are geared for use by individuals. People use Wordpress, Blogger, Audacity, and Word to express themselves. Firefox, delicious, Google, Google Reader, and Bloglines help people find and read things on the web. Individuals communicate with Skype and Gmail. This is in line with the findings of the report the eLearning Guild will release tomorrow: Most authors of formal learning programs learn to do their jobs informally.
Word and PowerPoint are the only tools more than ten years old. Fully half the tools are less than five years old.
- Firefox 2004
delicious 2003
Skype 2003
Google Search 1998
PowerPoint 1987
Wordpress 2003
Gmail 2004
Google Reader 2005
Blogger 1999
Word 1983
Audacity 1999
Bloglines 2003
It looks like the 109 people who participated in Jane’s 2007 survey are for the most part independent, informal learners.
Note to Microsoft: Wake up, smell coffee. Cash cows don’t live forever.
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Related post: hosted (about Salesforce.com’s new approach)
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This is weird. The most popular ‘learning’ tool is Firefox, a web browser. Which, apparently, soundly beat Internet Explorer, a significantly more popular web browser, into 31st place. And how many email applications are mentioned?
Just exactly what questions were asked to generate this list? And who was asked? Simply from the weird skew of IE vs Firefox, and the strange list of ‘tools’ for ‘learning’ I have to question the validity of the entire list. Too many of the tools listed make no sense to my humble and ignorant perspective.
Steve, the question asked was “What are your 10 favourite tools for your personal learning/working or for creating learning for others?”
Jane’s site lists the names of respondents. Many are well-known learning professionals.
IE has the most users, but Firefox is the browser of choice for the sophisticated end of the market.
The point is that the tools are useful for individual learning, not the traditional course-based learning.
The sophisticated end of the market? Or the non-conformist end?
Agin, it seems terribly odd, to me, that so many repondants chose email clients as learning tools. I know, I know, it’s down to personal perspective.
But since it’s my nature to always question the validity polls and surveys, and most especially the conclusions drawn from them, I find it hard to see much useful about this one. Some sort of preamble to the question would, IMHO, have presented a more useful result.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s hard to ask the right questions in a survey to get unfiltered results that are meaningful. The wrong preamble also harms the results.
Ask someone a series of questions about the war in Iraq, then ask them if the budget for it should be increased.
Now, instead, ask them a series of questions about inner-city poverty, and poor school conditions, *then ask if they think the budget for the war in Iraq should be increased. You can be sure the answers will be skewed in both cases.
But my point here is that the responses in this survey are so unfiltered as to be nonsensical **from my ignorant perspective**. Others, no doubt, will disagree. But then that’s what opinions are for
The free tools, such as FireFox and GMail, are the most critical and fast growing in the world. It levels out the learning curve among those in locations unable to afford any other software than the free downloads.
Thank you to those who produce free readily available software.