I am an Australian creative arts academic. My current position is Associate Professor and Deputy Dean Faculty of Arts at the University of Southern Queensland. I teach, research and work at voice and text study for performance, theatre history, and professional development. As a new technologies research practitioner, I am interested in the potential for developing e-learning assets for use in the creative arts. I have integrated several of these technologies into theoretical and practical university courses in which I teach. I blog regularly to assist in building up commentary on research projects and practice. Blogging is also a way to facilitate communication amongst a global network of communities of practice.   Website: Spinning a Learning Web; Blog: Groundling

Kate's Top 10 Tools as at 10 August 2008

1. Twhirl a client for Twitter. A well-designed desktop app that can be customised to receive and post without ever going to the web. Twitter remains a good way to get started with social networking and to introduce community. Easy to post via web or mobile phone.
2. Firefox - my browser of choice. With an apparently infinite source of extensions, plug-ins and add-ons, Firefox is quick, customizable and clever.
3. Feedly - works via Google Reader but in an easier to read, customisable, 'magazine' format - lovely design.
4. Wordpress - open-source software for creating blogs. It's free, flexible, and has great support from the team.
5. Tumblr: 'lite' blogging but a way to collate and 'dump' web quick finds for later sorting and for sharing
6. Seesmic. Blogging posts, commenting and conversation with video.
7. del.icio.us - What more to say about this delightfully delicious tagging application which makes it easy-peasy to save sites, and to collate and share with colleagues. Free
8. Friend Feed. Gather all your social networking apps and services and blog posts into the one spot and share. I can't do without Friend Feed in these busy days.
9. Omni Outliner - a proprietary product from the Omni software group. I use Omni Outliner in so many ways: for creating class schedules, to- do lists, outlining research papers and so on. $
10. Flickr - and all its add-ons and tools. This is a wonderful source of materials for learning and teaching. Images can be saved or accessed in a variety of ways. I find the Creative Commons licensing search to be particularly useful as I look for appropriate images to use in blog posts or presentations which I like to be image rich and text-light. Free or $ for the Pro version.

Kate's Top 10 Tools as at 4 January 2008

1. Wetpaint Wikis - free and easy to use. One of the best ways to introduce people to online, collaborative writing and learning. Contains related ads.
2. Wordpress - open-source software for creating blogs. It's free, flexible, and has great support from the team.

3. Linkify - a bookmarklet which takes the time and effort out of the tedium of manual hotlinking to sites within blogposts. A boon which makes for richer postings.  Free

4. Firefox - my browser of choice. With an apparently infinite source of extensions, plug-ins and add-ons, Firefox is quick, customizable and clever.

5. del.icio.us - What more to say about this delightfully delicious tagging application which makes it easy-peasy to save sites, and to collate and share with colleagues. Free

6. Garageband - Part of the Apple iLife suite. Comes free with Macs. My personal podcasting assistant. Easy to use and integrates perfectly with all other Mac iLife tools.

7. Quicksilver - a Mac only onboard tool which makes it a snap to find open and work on anything on the computer. Keyboard driven. Free

8. Omni Outliner - a proprietary product from the Omni software group. I use Omni Outliner in so many ways: for creating class schedules, to-do lists, outlining research papers and so on. $

9. Google Reader - the best feed reader bar none. Customizable and simple to use as are most Google apps.

10. Flickr - and all its add-ons and tools. This is a wonderful source of materials for learning and teaching. Images can be saved or accessed in a variety of ways. I find the Creative Commons licensing search to be particularly useful as I look for appropriate images to use in blog posts or presentations which I like to be image rich and text-light. Free or $ for the Pro version.