Top 10 Tools for Learning and Working

Jane Hart put out a call for e-learning professionals’ top 10 tools that they use for learning and working. Here’s mine:

1. Firefox – Firefox rules, IE drools! Love the tabs, love the extensions, love the speed, love the customization, love it.

2. Google reader + Google notebook + Gmail + iGoogle + Google Docs and Spreadsheets + Google Search – I lumped all these Google apps into one. Google Reader let’s me digest a ton of info quickly. Google notebook gives me an easy way to collect and organize thoughts. Gmail is an e-mail app, chat tool, to-do list, idea collection box, and more in one. iGoogle is my home on the web. Docs and Spreadsheets is an easy way to collaborate. Google search is google search.

3. WordPress – Been a long time blogger user. In 2004 I created my first (and most visited) blog using Blogger. However, I’ve recently been converted to WordPress. Much easier to use. Nice features. Pretty templates. Only downside is that you can’t customize the HTML without paying. OK with me for now.

4. Flickr – Nice way to keep the fam updated on what I’m doing. Also a good learning tool. For example, I’m preparing for a move to Austin, TX and have used flickr alot to learn more about my new city. It even gives good real esate advice! Be sure to visit my flickr page.

5. Captivate – Captivate has lots of in’s, lots of out’s, lots of what have you’s. But once you figure those out, it’s a great tool.

6. Microsoft Office + Sharepoint - If you find yourself working for a company or school that is Microsoft-centric, the Office suite and Sharepoint can be pretty useful. Specifically Sharepoint, which can be used for discussion boards, wikis, blogs, document sharing, and much more. I’ll be posting soon about how I’ve used Sharepoint as a knowledge management system at work (subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss out).

7. TextPad – Great free text editor for html, css, etc.

8. iTunes – Podcasts! I love the This American Life podcast!

9. Adobe Connect – We use Adobe Connect for synchronous online training, as well as virtual collaboration. It’s kinda pricey, but the best web conferencing software I’ve used. Very versatile and dependable…. pretty too!

10) Facebook – Great way to keep up with e-learning pros, read about your long lost friends, show off your new wife, learn about a new city, etc. Now that they’ve opened their API, there are tons of useful third party apps. I’ve been able to integrate my “recommended reading” from google reader, my wordpress blog, and flickr photos. Add me as a friend!

Open Facebook

Wired makes a call for open standards in social networking sites. I’ve heard this complaint in several places, and think it’s a valid one. It’s annoying that our social netorking “identities” are walled off. Take me for example… I have accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, Internet Time, Eduspaces, MySpace, Friendster, and countless other social networking startups whose tires I kicked for a few days. Each time I create one of these accounts, I have to recreate my network. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could see all of my facebook contacts when logged in to linkedin?

Here’s a couple money quotes:

“They’re all good, but they’d be better if they worked together. The iPhone would be better if it could also be used on Verizon’s and Sprint’s networks, and Facebook would be better if you could link to friends’ pages on MySpace and Bebo. Social networking should be based on open standards, just like e-mail. “

“We would like to place an open call to the web-programming community to solve this problem. We need a new framework based on open standards. Think of it as a structure that links individual sites and makes explicit social relationships, a way of defining micro social networks within the larger network of the web. “

There are people who see Facebook as more of a ”gated community” (as some would call it) than a closed network. However, you could still have an exclusive “members-only” network, while still having the ability to share your information with outsiders.

So, we’ll just have to keep waiting until open standards are developed for these sites. Until then, we could all replace Facebook using open social tools. It’s a temporary fix, at least.

Ipod Heritage Trail – My Wifey

 

My wifey is working on a Masters in Historic Preservation, and her thesis project involves creating an iPod heritage trail for Cumberland Island in Georgia. The idea is that visitors to the island will be able to experience interpretive exhibits in a remote setting. Using portable technologies, visitors can obtain a personalized tour in dense forests, untouched beaches, and abandoned buildings.

So far, she’s been doing research, writing scripts, etc. But now she’s finally working on the actual exhibits… and I gotta say, this is gonna be cool. Imagine standing at the Dungeness ruins and getting a multimedia lesson on the history of the site. Or… stand at the chimneys from the old slave cabins and see a rendering of how the site used to look.

Anyway, I think it’s great and I’m proud of her. Hopefully when she’s done with a couple of the exhibits, she’ll allow me to post one on Youtube so you can see it here.

Why I Left Eduspaces

I recently moved my blog from Eduspaces to WordPress. Eduspaces is built on the Elgg platform, which enables you to create your own social network. The Eduspaces network is devoted to educators, which is a great idea… but it’s not quite there.

Here’s a few things I’d like to see Elgg improve upon:

• There’s no way to separate quality content from the rest. As I said in a comment on the Internet Time forums, Eduspaces needs a way to recommend content. When you log in, you’re normally greeted with a mountain of blog posts. A recent article on Wired talks about how Daily Kos gets around this issue. Users are able to vote, promote, and rank content created by the community.
• I couldn’t see what my “friends” were doing. When you log in to Facebook, you can see that Friend A added Friend B to their contacts list. Friend C joined Group A. Friend D wrote a new blog post…. and so on. Elgg does allow you to view your “Friends’ Blog”, which compiles all of your friends’ posts into one list. That’s a good start…
• After trying WordPress, adding the WordPress app to Facebook, and joining a few e-learning Facebook groups, I really don’t have much of a need for Eduspaces. Most Eduspaces folks are on Facebook, and they’re much more active there (most likely for some of the reasons I’ve listed above).

I hope this doesn’t sound too critical of Elgg. I think it’s a great idea. I like that it’s open source.  I just think it needs some work.

Wii + Second Life for Training Simulations

Nice article on Wired about a firm who is helping organizations build training simulations using a “Wii-mote” in Second Life.

A few examples were cited:

• a company interested in training workers for its power plants
• a manufacturer of medical devices
• pest-control firm Orkin, who is hoping “…to create training simulations, which might involve inspecting a house for moisture and heat sources or mixing chemicals and loading them onto a truck.

Cool cool cool…

Text Your Own Adventure w/ Spiderman

I stumbled upon this video a few days ago… it’s a Text Your Own Adventure w/ Spiderman! Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books? Well, this sorta works the same way.

Basically, you watch a video in which Spiderman tries to save the world from the Golden Girls and trans-fats. At the end of the video, you send a text message to choose your ending. Either spiderman uses his power for evil, spiderman loses to the girls, or spiderman wins… you decide. Once you send a text message with the ending of your choice, you get a message in return that includes instructions on viewing your ending. Click the thumbnail below to see an example:

This is a pretty interesting use of text messaging, and it made me curious if e-learning professionals had begun trying something similar. After all, many colleges are already beginning to adopt text messaging as an option for broadcasting announcements to students. I don’t suppose it would be a giant leap for faculty to begin sending pop quizzes, scavenger hunts, hints/tips, reminders, and other messages via text.

Mlearning-world.com recently posted several good examples of using text messaging for education. The first example is a “data burst”:

To improve her team’s sales skills, a sales manager polled her top sales consultants as to key aspects of different products that resulted in sales. She also gathered information from various sales training courses. Gathering all of the information collected, she organized this into 100-200 word chunks like the following two examples:

Sales Tip: Use Examples- ABC corporation saved $100 a month by switching from RDI 750 to 1000.

Did You Know: The RDI 1000 can handle 5 times the users as the 750.

The next example was a scavenger hunt:

The new Customer Service representatives were sent to random retail stores they supported. Challenges were sent to their mobile phones and the students would text back their answers. In one example, the students were challenged to find the price of a specific model of digital camera. The students would search the store to find the camera and either take a picture with their phone and send it or text the answer back. This gave the students a customer experience in searching for products their customers would want to find.

Has anyone out there tried any learning activities via text messaging? If so how’d it go?

Kudos to anyone who can comment using only text messaging abbreviations.

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog

Boring Webcasts

My wifey sent me an IM the other day while she was sitting in a webcast.

Thought her use of google talk as a distraction during a webcast was a nice illustration of how a poorly designed webinar can be pretty boring…

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog

Rapid E-learning Tools + Informal Learning

A few weeks ago, I attended the E-learning Guild’s Annual Gathering in Boston, MA. One of the sessions I attended was the Rapid Elearning Tools panel, in which representatives from Articulate, Adobe Captivate, and Qarbon discussed their existing tools w/ Jay Cross. After the conference, I posted a comment on the Articulate “Word of Mouth” blog, but wanted to expand on my thoughts here.

It was interesting to have someone who is widely considered to be a guru on informal learning exchange ideas with rapid development folks. Wouldn’t it be nice if these rapid development tools could integrate with services such as Blogger, PBWiki, MySpace, Facebook, EduSpaces, etc?

Anyone could give a 10 minute video presentation w/ accompanying visuals and post it to their blog w/ two clicks. Or post a software demo to a social networking profile with a snap. Or post a simulation to PBWiki. (and so on)

Rapid E-learning tools could really take off if they made the “I” in ADDIE so simple that anyone could do it.

Thanks to Mark for the video

UPDATE: After re-reading my post, I realize that I made it sound as if all there is to the “I” in ADDIE is posting content on the web. There’s more to it than that… but a seamless integration between rapid development tools and web 2.0 services would simplify things, no?

Re-posted after abandoning my Eduspaces blog

Nintendo DS as Life Coach

This month’s issue of Wired has an interesting note about some new games being released for the handheld Nintendo DS system:

Gals in Japan are using Nintendo DS to do way more than play with Mario. A flood of femme-focused self-help software now runs on the touchscreen handheld. Female Power Emergency Up! DS (shown) promises to “Change your destiny in three months!” by measuring skills in love, fashion, beauty, diet, and fortune-telling(?!), then challenging girls to increase their scores. My Happy Manner Book gives lessons on social etiquette — vital stuff, like which kimonos are proper for single women. Mainichi Kokorobics DS Therapy (a play on the Japanese word for “heart” and the English “aerobics”) is like a series of sessions with a digital psychiatrist. And Yoga Anwhere is a CG personal trainer that demonstrates poses and guides girls through daily workouts.

This got me googling to see of others had developed e-learning for the Nintendo DS platform… which led me to this post:

The only people left in the world who don’t see games as the ideal tool for learning are those that have never played one. If you can’t see that kids are forming, managing, and leading 60 person Guilds and spending 45 hours planning, and learning the correct strategies for achieving one successful mission than you are playing the wrong games and way out of touch.

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog

Free Tools for E-learning

A few weeks ago I presented a session at the Elearning Guild Annual Gathering called “BYOW – Build Your Own Webinar”. In the session, I demonstrated a variety of free tools that users could copy/paste into their own webinar client. The tools came together to create an interface that includes chat, whiteboard, file sharing, remote-controlled slide deck, polls, video, breakout groups, VOIP, notes, and more.

Take a look at a sample of the final product at http://www.thedayjobs.com/byow (note: the slide deck is remote controlled, so unless I’m logged in as an instructor you will see a message that says, “The presentation has not yet started”)

I’m posting this here because I’d like to share some of the tools I used in my presentation. These tools could be used in a variety of ways:

• Slide Deck – http://www.zohoshow.com
• Chat – http://www.gabbly.com
• Polls – http://www.zohopolls.com
• Audio – http://www.skype.com and http://www.highspeedconferencing.com
• Video – http://www.youtube.com
• Whiteboard – http://www.skrbl.com
• FIle sharing – http://www.box.net
• Wiki – http://www.pbwiki.com
• Note tool – http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open (search for notes)

If you’d like to see how I combined all of these tools into one, take a look at my handout.

One tool that was not available at the time of my presentation (or at least I hadn’t heard of it yet) was ustream.tv. From Techcrunch:

The basic Ustream service is free, and anyone with a computer, an Internet connection and a web cam can set up their own channel and broadcast live. Viewers can watch on the site, or embed the live video onto any other website.Coulda used Ustream to provide live video of the instructor in my self-made webinar client… oh well.

The point is this… there’s tons of free tools out there. Go play with ‘em! Some of ‘em might be of use to you during your next project.

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog