As far as I’m concerned, Jane Hart = GOOD STUFF in the world and learning and performance. Beyond her insightful, thought-leader posts and other development offerings (which I have not experienced but hear only good things), she also drives the annual Top 100 Tools for Learning survey. This is a cool opportunity for everyone who uses tech tools for learning (which would be all humans with access to computers) to share their personal best practices. To clarify, Jane defines a learning tool as …
A learning tool is any software or online tool or service that you use either for your own personal or professional learning, for teaching or training, or for creating e-learning.
Jane then curates and publishes the final Top 100 list. You can review the 2013 list presentation via SlideShare.
You can submit your top 10 list as part of the 2014 survey here until midnight GMT on Friday, September 19.
Along the way, Jane also urges individual survey contributors to post their own Top 10 Tools lists. So, here’s my current top 10 tech tools for learning. You can also checkout similar personal lists from cool industry peeps like Clark Quinn, Connie Malamed, Helen Blunden, and Harold Jarche along with a big, scrollable collection of other votes thus far here.
My New Top 10 List
I originally submitted my top 10 list for Jane’s survey in January, 2014. As I wrote this post, I took the opportunity to evaluate my selections and redraft my list. I hope it’s due to my selection of awesome tools and not a lack of evolution, but my list remains almost exactly the same. Only the order has changed a bit since my survey submission.
- Search – Most of my personal “learning experiences” start with a curiosity-driven search. Most times, it’s a Google search. However, if I’m at work, it may be a wiki search for proprietary info. Either way, I use a search engine to hunt down the info I need to improve my performance in some way.
- Twitter – My personal learning network and curation efforts all start here.
- Google Hangout – This is my interpersonal discussion platform of preference, especially given my tendency to work in remote locations (home office or restaurants, not the jungle or anything). Adios, conference calls!
- Pocket – I use this app to collect and curate web-based content, especially from Twitter.
- HipChat – Goodbye lengthy email exchanges. Hello, HipChat! My work group uses persistent chatrooms to exchange ideas and manage project work.
- Google Drive – Real-time collaboration on written materials and presentations changes EVERYTHING!
- FlipBoard – Have you checked out my Just Curious L&D Mag? FlipBoard lets me easily collect and share cool stuff I find online in a device-friendly magazine format. It’s for my reading enjoyment just as much as it is for others.
- Confluence – My workplace wiki, documentation central, discussion forum, social performance support tool, and all around internal Internet of things.
- WordPress – I’m trying to get back in here more often to sort out and share my ideas via my Just Curious Blog.
- Axonify – My reiterative training platform at work provides on-demand opportunities for our staff and keeps me updated with company info that isn’t usually part of my daily work.
If there were 11 items in a top 10 list, Evernote would have been included as my invaluable cloud-based note-taking application.
What’s your top 10 list? Has it changed must since last year? Have you submitted your list in the survey?
