Julian Prior is eLearning Coordinator at New College,
Swindon and is in the final year of an MSc. in Education, Technology and
Society at Bristol University.
Julian's Top 10 Tools as
at 14 November 2009
1.
Apple Garageband
Software guaranteed to put a smile
on the face of even the most hardened neo-luddite teacher! We've used it
to create basic audio, enhanced audio and video podcasts with teachers
and learners, and they have great fun using it. A reminder that teaching
and learning can and should be a fundamentally creative process.
2.
ScreenFlow
Like iMovie for screen capture. Just
wish I had more time to use it to create screencasts as they look so
professional. Recently upgraded to version 2 with transitions between
clips now included.
3.
Posterous
A brilliantly simple way to get
teachers and learners into blogging. Very excited about feature
development in 2010.
4. Wikipedia
I just love the philosophy behind
Wikipedia - "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet
is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." Jimmy Wales for
president!
5. iPhone/iPod Touch
Yet to reach its potential as a
learning device, more often than not due to ongoing suspicions from
technicians and technologists about Apple's closed system. Yet has the
potential to change the face of mobile learning over the next decade
once we focus on what it can do rather than what it cannot do.
6.
ScreenSteps
A wonderful cross-platform tool for
creating graphical walkthroughs for software and online tools. Annotate
the steps then export to a myriad of formats. Fantastic for staff
development.
7.
Apple Keynote
Even though Powerpoint is more
powerful (and pretty much ubiquitous in UK teaching) Apple's alternative
handles graphics and video better, and its still harder to do a bad
presentation using Keynote (although I've tried believe me).
8.
Zoho suite of tools
Everyone talks about Google Docs
but for me the Zoho suite of tools (including a wiki, word processor,
presentation tool, project management tool etc.) deserves to take on the
big boys. Clean interface, easy to use, good support and reasonable
price plans.
9.
Twitter
I'm an occasional user but I think
it has enormous potential as a learning tool. Hopefully 2010 will see it
realise its potential in teaching and learning.
10.
Moodle
Despite the fact it can be a bit
clunky and temperamental, and aesthetically it is falling behind some of
the better web 2.0 tools out there, its still the go-to VLE for so many
organisations including the college I work at.
