Top 10 Tools for Learners

The current Top 10 list of tools for learners, based on contribution of 47 Learners AS AT 4 APRIL is:

1. Google Search
2. YouTube
3. Firefox
4. Twitter
   Wikipedia
5. Delicious
6. Facebook
   Gmail
   Google Reader
   Skype

Top 10 Tools for Learning Professionals

The current top 10 tools for learning professionals to use in their own professional practice for creating learning “solutions” for others and their own productivity is AS AT 4 APRIL as follows, based on the contributions of 21 learning professionals

1. Delicious
2. Twitter
3. Skype
4. Slideshare
5. Google Reader
6. Google Docs
7. Audacity
   Google Search
   Moodle
   Ning
   PowerPoint
   SnagIt

I’m currently using almost all of these tools, and I’m slowly introducing more of them to my students. Many of the tools have had a profound impact on the way I teach and keep up to date in education, and on the way my students learn and produce.

I might also add Digg to the list as I use it often to find top articles on topics of interest.

First of all, any school curriculum that does not adequately include teaching learners about the past is no curriculum, in my mind. Moreover, as I’ve been pushing since day one on this blog here and here, it shouldn’t be an either/or proposition. History and the other core subjects are essential; and so is teaching students the skills they need in today’s world. There is time enough for a skilled teacher to fit them both in.

Julie Lindsay addresses this topic in her e-Learning Journeys blog. An excerpt:

I tried to explain that my class does not end when the students work out the door. The collaboration, interaction and socialisation continues. My students interact with each other, they interact with me, their teacher, via online tools of various names and varieties which could all come under the broad term of ‘social networking’. They have their own online areas, including digital portfolios, as well as community areas. They post to blogs and respond to each other. They are out there using social bookmarking, folksonomy, class wikis, creating podcasts and vodcasts and putting them online, using social imaging (flickr) and anything else I can think of to encourage motivation and excitement in their ultimate quest for learning. I do not apologise for this. I do not essentially see anything wrong with this in 21st century learning. In fact this approach has changed my whole teaching style and changed the way I interact with the students. The development of PLEs (personal learning environments) and ubiquitous and mobile computing means I now start my classes with ‘…open your blogs, refer to the class wiki…etc’ rather than ‘..take out your books and copy from the board’.

Read more.

Photo by San Diego Shooter

For those of you thinking the current recession is the jarring event that will result in a revolution in learning; think again. Although a speaker at Online Educa in Berlin this past December predicted that entire training departments will be obliterated in the recession, that’s only likely to happen if the rest of the organizations these departments serve are obliterated. Otherwise, what we have learned from previous recessions is that training receives

]]> http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/04/02/the-death-of-the-classroom/feed/ 0 http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/31/my-students-progress-via-class-blog/ http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/31/my-students-progress-via-class-blog/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:37:26 +0000 Kevin Blissett http://kevinblissett.wordpress.com/?p=49 My Year 11 students and I are really enjoying our class blog. I’m seeing a side of their creativity that I would not have seen otherwise, I’m guessing. The students are engaged, innovative, and genuinely seem to be excited about posting even if it’s an “assignment.”

Basically I’m having them do three types of post: One is a summary assigned to one student every day detailing what we did in class; the next is a daily reflection on most any topic; the third is a specific writing assignment which we collaborate on.

What I’m noticing is that I’m no longer spending time on discrete grammar lessons, and the students seem to be learning grammar faster because the learning is more meaningful. I highly recommend the use of class blogs for any subject.

]]> http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/31/my-students-progress-via-class-blog/feed/ 0 http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/28/another-eitheror-choice/ http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/28/another-eitheror-choice/#comments Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:00:00 +0000 Kevin Blissett http://kevinblissett.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/another-eitheror-choice/
Digital Education reports that UK schools will be forgoing some content in the National Curriculum in favor of learning classroom 2.0 skills like Tweeting, blogging, podcasting, social media networking, etc. This is another one of those choices that I don’t believe is “either/or.” Learners will need some instruction in learning these skills, but I doubt that a considerable amount of content needs to be excluded in order to accomplish the task. Quoting from The Guardian:

“The proposals would require…children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication.”

And from Digital Ed:

Even before the new documents are released they are fueling debate over content in UK schools. I can just imagine the response it will bring from subject-area specialists: Without the content, will students have anything meaningful to blog about?

]]> http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/28/another-eitheror-choice/feed/ 0 http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/23/social-media-in-the-classroom/ http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/03/23/social-media-in-the-classroom/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:38:00 +0000 Kevin Blissett http://kevinblissett.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/social-media-in-the-classroom/ Christopher Sessums breaks down an article on businesses’ use of social media and wonders whether the same questions asked of those engaged in business media should be asked of educators wishing to use social media in the classroom.

Sessums states:

What I like most about Chandler’s metrics is their candor. For example, a question like “How does this application further our goal?” begs the question: “What is our goal?” — a great place to start!

Questions such as “How do we measure the results?” and “Do our customers [nee users] want to communicate this way?”

The questions I’m asking are “How would I use social media in the classroom?” and “How would I measure the results?” Certainly there are a number of ways to write in social media, but the fact is that the most writing people do is to update their status. I would be interested in investigating applications for the classroom. I enthusiastically use social media in my personal and professional life, but I’m straining to see how my enjoyment could extend to my students in a concrete and productive way. I would love some comments and ideas.

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