TOP TOOLS
TOP 10 TOOLS 2007 & 2008
Cristina Costa

Cristina is an EFL teacher and learning technologist. She used to involve students in ICT activities. Currently she is working at the University of Salford, helping academic staff in efficient use of edu-technology.  www.knowmansland.com

Cristina's Top 10 Tools as at 6 March 2008

1. Wordpress: I use the wordpress platform to host my blog. Long live the open source developers and their generosity. I just love this blog software.

2. Del.icio.us: the best social bookmark. The best way to share links and resources.

3. Firefox browser: my favourite web browser. It's easy to use and offers a lot of useful plug-ins.

4. igoogle: my current homepage where all the information I need comes together in an easy way.

5. Googledocs: great tool for collaborative writing. I have been using it especially to co-write articles and conference proposals.

6. Gmail: my favourite personal email account. I like the fact I can tag emails. They become more easily searchable.

7. Skype: the best web-telephony tool to connect to other computers and also landline phones.

8. Twitter: I have been learning a lot from all those micro messages I have been receiving from my twitter community.

9. Yahoo!groups. My favourite way to communicate with the groups and communities I belong to.

10. youtube: A place I turn to when I need to look for tool tutorials. I have also come across some great inspirational videos. Music clips are also good fun.

What are your Top 10 Tools for learning?
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Cristina's Top 10 Tools as at 31 July 2007

1. Skype is definitely my favourite communication tool at the moment. It is easy, straight-forward to use and usually doesn’t offer any kind of problems. I am especially delighted by the fact that the voice component works so well even with dial-up connections. I have used it with different people in Africa, for instance, and it has been a success. The file transfer is also a wonder. I have been using it with my contacts as an alternative to the attach-send file routine, because it reaches the other end very quickly.

2. Firefox - It is my favourite web browser. It does everything I want. It is quite fast and I LOVE the add-ons that are always being improved and released. I find the language dictionaries quite useful, for instance. The tabs feature, which IE also displays in its new version, was one of my initial “excuses” to start using it. I’ve never used another web browser ever since.

3. Google Search - My favourite research engine. I use it everyday to find links about everything. It is a great tool.

4. Google Maps - I can’t live without it anymore. It is my source for information about all the places I want to go or that I for some reason need to locate. It is only a shame that it still doesn’t offer maps for cyclists and about bike(able) tracks.

5. Blogger (and WordPress) - I am a blogger and started blogging in blogger. It is one of my favourite blogging tools. I like it especially because it is very straight forward to create and use. The last add-ons and improvements to the tool have made it even more appealing. I am also starting to like wordpress blogs a lot. I especially like the option of creating internal/ additional pages, something that blogger hasn’t come up with yet! 

6. Slideshare - This is a tool that I started using in a shy way, but that I am growing fonder and fonder of. I especially like it because it is easy to upload and to link / embed the slide presentation to webpages and/or blogs. I am also impressed with the networking feature, which I find very interesting and inspiring. I am now starting to get interested in their new voice feature. It’s a tool to consider!

7. Protopage -  I started using protopage sometime ago. The purpose was to have a personalized webpage where I could gather links of interest. Nowadays it is my main feed-aggregator tool. Everyday when I log on to my computer, and initiate my web browser I am automatically welcomed with the new feeds from the blogs I regularly read. I know I am not using it to its full potential, but it does the trick for me!

8. del.icio.us - The best bookmarking tool I have ever tried. I like the way it allows me to tag and save my links. I can connect to them from anywhere, as long as I am connected to the internet. I don’t need to drag my laptop around anymore. I also appreciate the fact that I can share my links with other people and establish contacts through it.

9. Yahoo Mail - My favourite email account service. I have been using it for ages and it usually works with no problems. The new version has brought some new functionalities which are quite practical, such as to be able to chat with whom from your contacts is in Yahoo Messenger without logging in to it. The RSS feed feature is also a good idea, although I am not using it that much these days.

10. Word - - MSWord is another very important tool, which I use on a regular basis. I like its basic functionalities and also the fact that it spell-checks for me all the time. I am also a great user of the comment feature and still consider it to be one of the most important tools for my daily job.