Learn and Lead

Now that I am using Twitter more frequently, I am bookmarking links on Twitter as favorites. I don’t save all the links on del.icio.us. Here are some of my Twitter favorites.

 

cammybean RT @eduify The Top 100 Education Blogs http://tinyurl.com/36ou27 (via @GarinKilpatrick)

hjarche Gloria Gery: Why don't we weigh them? - a classic for the learning profession  http://www.gloriagery.com/articles/whydont

jtcobb Free online course: Instructional Design for the Subject Matter Expert (SME):  http://www.kineolearning.com/60minutemasters/

jtcobb Whether for e-learning or content marketing - How to create your own online course: 100 tools, guides, and resources:http://bit.ly/12T2by

thoughts  RT @KathySierra: In Defense of Eye Candy -http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy

jagoinvestor Be careful when you pick a domain name... Top 10 Most Painfully Funny Company URLs http://is.gd/sigE

rnarchana Ruth Clark's Give your training a Visual Boosthttp://bit.ly/43rOGJ very precise, to the point, and effective... must read

Quinnovator RT: @eduinnovation: 3 Brainstorming Problems Faced By Professional Learning Communities... http://is.gd/qJC5

JaneBozarth How to bypass most firewall restrictions http://www.buzzsurf.com/surfatwork

arnoldbala How to form a company? - http://tinyurl.com/c9eggb

cammybean Tough love for instructional design:http://tinyurl.com/bxx64l

hgetson 10 ways to measure social media success.: Is your social media strategy helping your business? How do you know? ..http://snipurl.com/d9pd4

narayananh Awesome Facebook profile photo hack - http://tinyurl.com/bbafhs

It’s been more than 6 months since I last posted my top 10 tools for learning. I thank Jane Hart for making me think to update the list for Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies’ compilation of top 10 tools for learning of as many as 184 learning professionals. There are some changes since I last wrote, though many of the tools and techniques still remain in my top 10 list.

Here are my top 10 tools for learning in Aug 2008.

1. Search engines – though Google is still my most used generic search engine, I have discovered and used few other more specific search engines. I frequently use Flickr and LinkedIn search add ons installed on my Firefox. I also use Summize (which has since been acquired by Twitter) to search Twitter tweets.
2. Blogging – blogging continues to help me reflect on my thoughts and crystallize my learning. I still use Blogger for my personal blog and have moved to hosted Wordpress for my team blog.
3. Blog Feeds – I read blogs via RSS feeds. Have been on Google Reader so far and recently discovered Feedly. Feedly integrates very well with Google Reader and presents a very nice magazine-like interface. I just love reading my RSS feeds on Feedly now.
4. Social Networks – I use Facebook as my main social networking environment and it’s been great. It has been a great source for getting help from my social network. I am also beginning to utilize LinkedIn Answer, though the usage is still low.
5. Social Bookmarking – I had del.icio.us on my list the last time, however I hardly use visit it to view other people’s bookmarks. What have really helped is the bookmarks I receive in various feeds (RSS or Facebook feeds) of my network. So social bookmarking is still on my list but the usage is different now.
6. Right click-Open in New Window/Tab – Still on my list. So you may argue this is not exactly a learning tool. But I find hyperlinks very distracting and if I click on a hyperlink I lose the flow of what I am reading. So I always right click and open the hyperlink in a new tab or window. This enables me to continue reading and if I do view a hyperlink, this allows me to return to my original document easily.
7. Web-enabled mobile phone (iPhone) – Continues to be on my list.
8. In-sighting and de-layering – A technique I learned in one of the leadership workshops. Now in every interaction I listen more carefully and ask more questions, with an attempt to get an insight into the subject of our discussion.
9. Online conferencing – continues to be on my list. We now use Office Communication Server (OCS) at work and that is used a lot more frequently now than other paid services.
10. Wikipedia – Continues on my list. Great place to find almost anything here.

Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies’s site is a good repository of various learning tools. Jane Hart invites contributions to identify top 10 learning tools that the learning professionals use. These are not elearning development tools but tools that allow us to learn ourselves. Jane’s summary of top 100 tools for learning from her 2007 survey makes an interesting reading.

Here are my top 10 tools for learning. Actually some of these might just be techniques. While I have listed some specific tools, in many cases, it is the technique that I found important. I have found very little difference in many of these tools and usually my favorites are the ones that I starting using first.

1. Google – an astonishingly simple interface, this search engine is the place where I go first when I am trying to know more about something.
2. Blogging – not a particular blogging tool, but just the fact of blogging has helped me know more and forced me to learn. It is a bit like teaching is the best method of learning. I use Blogger for my blog.
3. Blogs – I find that I am reading and learning more from blogs than from other sources like magazines (online or paper), social networking sites, or company/product websites.
4. Google Reader – RSS actually. I use Google Reader manage my feeds. RSS has really helped me stay up to date with new articles of various blogs and sites that I track. I really like this tool.
5. del.icio.us – I work on three computers (if I include my mobile phone) and del.icio.us really makes it easy for me to track my bookmarks. But more importantly, I learn from the community to see what others are reading.
6. Right click-Open in New Window/Tab – Okay, so you may argue this is not exactly a learning tool, but I find hyperlinks very distracting and if I click on a hyperlink I lose the flow of what I am reading. So I always right click and open the hyperlink in a new tab or window. This enables me to continue reading and if I do view a hyperlink, this allows me to return to my original document easily.
7. Web-enabled mobile phone – I resisted getting a GPRS phone for a very long time for the fear of being chased by emails all the time (is there a phobia name for that, I wonder). But ever since I got my iPhone I have been absolutely hooked to its full browser Safari. This allows me to learn when I am not the move anywhere. Given our travel times now a days, I would recommend people getting a GPRS enabled phone with a browser. And the company deal from my service provider at Rs. 99 ($2.50) per month for unlimited usage is an absolute steal.
8. Online conferencing (WebEx, Adobe Acrobat Connect) – I don’t have any particular software that is my favorite. WebEx was the most used online conferencing but I am seeing the usage of Adobe Connect increasing. Online conferencing for meetings and training is a great tool for learning and collaboration.
9. Slideshare – In my view, the YouTube of presentations. This is a great social networking site for sharing presentations. You can access some really interesting presentations here.
10. Wikipedia – Great place to find almost anything here.