Once again, the inimitable Jane Hart is running her Top 10 Tools for Learning survey. The insights are valuable, not least because it points out how much of our learning comes from other than formal learning. So, here are my Top 10 Tools for Learning 2024, in no particular order:
Google Docs. I write, a lot. And, increasingly, I want others to weigh in. I am cranky that I have to choose a tool instead of just going to one place to collaborate, and I struggle with the file structure of Drive, but the feature set within Docs is good enough to support collaborative writing. And collaborative work in general is something I strongly advocate for. Collective intelligence, as Nigel Paine refers to it. For myself, however, – articles, books – I still use…
Microsoft Word. I’m not a big fan of the parent company (they have glommed on to the current plan for subscriptions, which makes financial sense but is a bad customer experience), and it’s not the writing tool that Scrivener is, but I’m so familiar with it (started using circa 1988) and the outlining is industrial strength (a feature I love and need). It’s the start of most of my writing.
Apple Freeform. I still use Omnigraffle, but I’m keen to support free tools, and this one’s proprietary format isn’t any worse than any others. I could use Google Draw, I suppose, particularly when collaborating, but somehow folks don’t seem to collaborate as much around diagrams. Hmm…
WordPress. This is the tool I use to write these blog posts. It’s a way for me to organize my thinking. Yes, it’s writing too, but it’s for different types of writing (shorter, more ‘in the moment’ thoughts). While the comments here are fewer, they still do come. Announcements get auto-posted to LinkedIn, Mastodon, & Bluesky.
LinkedIn. This is where I get more comments than, these days, I do on my blog. Plus, we use it to write and talk about the Learning Development Accelerator and Elevator 9. I follow some folks, and connect with lots. It remains my primary business networking tool. Feel free to connect with me (if you’re in L&D strategy ;).
Mastodon & Bluesky. Yes, this counts as two, but I use them very similarly. Since the demise of Twitter (eX), I’ve looked for an alternative, and regularly stay with these two. They’re (slightly) different; Mastodon seems a bit more thoughtful, Bluesky is more dynamic, but they’re both ways to stay in touch with what people are thinking, largely outside the L&D space. Still haven’t found all my peeps there, but I’m Quinnovator (of course) on both.
News Apps/Sites. I’m also learning via news apps, again staying up with what’s happening in the larger world. So, I get Yahoo News because one email is there. Also, I check some sites regularly: ABC (Australia, not US), BBC, and Apple News (because it’s on my iPad). I’m counting this as one because otherwise it’d overwhelm my count.
Apple Mail. I subscribe to a few newsletters, mostly on learning science, and some blogs. They come in email (directly or via Feedblitz). This is all part of Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery elements of Seek – Sense – Share, and these are updated regularly but are part of the seek. Some of the writing I do is the sharing. Making sense is the above writing, diagramming, and…
Apple Keynote. Creating presentations for webinars, workshops, speaking engagements such as keynotes, and the like is another way I make sense of the world. So, having a good tool to create them is critical, and Keynote works more the way I think than PowerPoint does.
So that’s it, my 10. It may not work for Jane’s categorization (sorry!), but it captures the way I think about it. Please do share yours, too! (There are more ways than writing a post, so find the one that works for you.)
I echo your sentiments on Microsoft and the distaste for their pivot to a subscription model. It’s good to see the inclusion of multiple social media platforms in your list, and I regret Musk’s demolition of a formerly useful experience for me in #Lrnchat. That experience has not been replicated on Bluesky or elsewhere for me.
Three items I’ll add to your list:
1. Books. They also don’t fit Jane’s categorization of “digital” tools, but the oldest of media still prove to be invaluable to me in offering new insights and deepening my understanding of concepts, as well as driving me to practice more with what I learn.
2. Conferences. Also not digital, but I have yet to experience a conference where I didn’t come back with some actionable idea or intelligence that made me better at what I do.
3. SnagIt. A remarkable versatile tool that does much more than just take screenshots, but even if that were all it did, its ease of use and reliability alone put it head-and-shoulders above the default tools Microsoft provides as part of the Windows OS.
Chad, thanks for weighing in. I do like books, I read a lot as well as write ;). I do read books on my iPad, instead of print, but usually when I’m reading non-fiction (either for work or for interest), I prefer print. I read loads of fiction on my iPad, but…it’s not for learning ;).
Conferences can be digital (see the LDA’s upcoming Learning Science Conference: https://ldaccelerator.com/learning-science-conference. But they’re not in my top 10 learning list.
Mac’s have a built in screen shot capability and I use it a lot, mostly to communicate (and, sadly, mostly about tech probs or bad design!). But not one of my top learning tools.
Things I didn’t include but would be near the top 10 came to me from Harold Jarche’s list such as Slack and Zoom. Which I use a lot.
Thanks for weighing in, and hope you’ve posted your own list to Jane!