Your Nominations for the Top 10 E-Learning Tools

As you work online you become dependent on certain e-learning tools. Here's my top 10 list of tools I've come to depend on. (Each is a single search keyword, so no urls for this post.)

Firefox (with del.icio.us & FireFTP plugins)

WordPress (I like Blogger, but WordPress is where the action is.)

del.icio.us (Social Bookmarking has may conventional bookmarking a dim memory)

Gmail (all of my email is forwarded to Gmail so I can search one large archive of correspondence. I've kicked my Eudora habit.)

Moodle (The more I teach with Moodle the better I like it.)

Fireworks (I do all of my graphics with Fireworks. Great for optimizing a clear small graphic.

Dreamweaver (Sometimes frustrating but powerful, DW is the one I know best.)

Google Reader (Makes RSS feeds easy to organize.)

Cclearner (I can't keep Win XP pro running right witout it.)

Spybot Search and Destroy (Best for zapping spyware that I know.)

So these are my top 10, what about yours?

Dennis In San Marcos

Tags: e-learning, learing, online, tools, webtools

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dennis O'Connor on December 15, 2008 at 9:58pm

Andrew, the free phone conferencing is very useful. I've used Skype for sometime. A few years ago I was able to video chat with my kids while they were in Ireland and France. It's gotten better with time. You do want to set the privacy options to just your approved contacts (or you can get some strange calls or chat messages). Still, it's a robust way to use the net as a phone system.

den

Permalink Reply by Patrick Payne on December 28, 2008 at 9:22am

Hi Dennis:
I use most of the tools you mentioned plus a very handy white board application called http://www.scriblink.com/ that has shared control, no download, audio (voip) file creation and emailing and a lot more. I wanted an easy collaboration tool for mindmapping for groups with no training on the more complex tools like CMaptools or Mindmiester. The learning curve is short.

I also use the gmail audio/video tool...my work colleagues started to usse it recently and we find we are getting good at instant contact when we work away from the office.
Cheers
Patrick

Permalink Reply by Dennis O'Connor on December 28, 2008 at 11:41am

Patrick, thanks for the scriblink recommendation. I gave it a whirl and I'm impressed by the features and the ease of use. It's intuitive, and offers a rich, focused toolset. For whiteboard brainstorming this looks like a winner. Have you tried it with the voip? I wonder how skype & scriblink would deal with each other.

I recently worked out on: http://www.twiddla.com. Twiddla offers whiteboard with screen sharing, and webpage markup. It's flash based and has a nerdy wow factor. It offers more tools and services, which can be useful if you need them. Lots of widgets, site embed tools. It has a high 'fun fool around factor". 8-)

Thanks for the lead!

Den

Permalink Reply by Maggi Carstairs on December 25, 2008 at 9:48pm

Interesting.I use half of these...must learn Dreamweaver this year..and find out what Fireworks is

I use Toni Easy Cleaner, a free tool for cleaning and its been fantastic, as well as Registry Cleaner...another top and easy helper.

I get grahics from Graphic Animation which is an awesome site, and use Typepad which is an awesome Blog tool
I love Irfanview for photo manipulation and fixing...and highly recommend it for quick photo work.
Maggi

Permalink Reply by William Peterson on December 29, 2008 at 11:20pm

I like Moodle and Snagit.

The RSS feeds reader what I use is RSS Reader.

The eLearning authoring tools what I use is Wondershare Rapid E-Learning Suite.

Gmail is what I like, but not Firefox, it's so slow on my computer, I'm using Maxhton.

Welcome for your suggestions!

Happy New Year!

Permalink Reply by SunnyY on January 8, 2009 at 6:56am

My favoriate elearning tools are:
280slides - a notable online replacement for desktop presentation apps.
Zoho Show - online presentation program allows users to create presentations.
PPT2Flash - lets non-technical users create high-impact Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint with rich media, quizzes and simulations.
ScreenToaster - free online screen recorder.
Hot Potatoes - create interactive web-based activities for self-assessment purposes, ree of charge for publicly funded, non-profit, educational users.
WiZiQ - free online e-teaching and e-learning virtual classroom
Moodle - open source course management system.
Dreamweaver
Google Reader

Permalink Reply by Eileen Field on January 25, 2009 at 11:14am

Hi there Dennis - I am a head teacher of a UK based online school - we hold everything within an Oracle database and use Elluminate as our classroom. So Elluminate gets my vote as one of your top 10!
But I have a question for you and colleagues here as well - my students (all 900 of the lovelies) are dead keen on creating out own social networking site. The issue I have is that I need a site that I can put in "filters" to or one that "moderates" itself. I don't have time to organise one of our teachers to talk control of that. So any suggestions? I'm concerned as all of my students could be classed as "vulnerable" and whilst I appreciate that they are all probably wandering around chat rooms and other social networking sites - if I badge one with my school - it's got to be safe and keep them safe! Suggestions please!

Permalink Reply by Dennis O'Connor on January 25, 2009 at 1:55pm

Eillen, social networking and school filters are contradictory concepts.

Still, if we live in the real world the contradictions ne
With this in mind here are some thoughts and resources.

1. http://web2virtualclassroom.wikispaces.com/AUP+2.0 This section of my Virtual Classroom Wiki deals with authorized use policies in a web 2.0 world. You'll find some good resources for creating a culture of responsibility when using the Internet in the classroom.

2. Moodle+Elgg http://fraser.typepad.com/moodle/2006/06/elggmoodle_inte.html Moodle provides the walled garden where you can protect students. Elgg provides the social networking tools that enhance Moodle's already rich toolset.

These suggestions just scratch the surface of the topic. If we get some action on this topic, I'll move shift things to an independent forum.

Den

Permalink Reply by Karen Huffman on March 1, 2009 at 4:54pm

Some of these have been listed but thought I'd echo to the list plus add a few more of my favorites:

Twitter http://www.twitter.com - micro-blog, micro-interactions. Check my favorites: http://delicious.com/khuffman/Twitter
Second Life http://www.secondlife.com - immersive environments. NASA has a wonderful Explorer Island.
Del.icio.us http://delicious.com/ - saving, organizing and noting favorite sites, articles, etc. Can access any place; not limited to my personal desktop.
Atlassian's Confluence wiki http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/ - see the Special Libraries Association's implementation http://wiki.sla.org
Google Docs http://docs.google.com - great for synchronous document editing
Google Reader http://reader.google.com - RSS feeds to resources, research materials, news sites, and blogs
Slideshare.net http://www.slideshare.net - for sharing presentations and adding MP3/sound to your presentation. Also includes the ability to create groups.
Skype http://www.skype.com - for talking and chatting to people around the world. Just today I was talking FREE to colleagues in the UK and Australia.
Ning.com http://www.ning.com - Social networking in a more controlled environment
Zoho http://www.zoho.com - like the meeting application; has a useful Project management tool
Web Junction Tech Atlas http://webjunction.techatlas.org - great project management/technology planning tool