TOP 10 TOOLS 2008
Mary Cooch

I'm an MFL and geography teacher and VLE trainer at Our Lady's High School Preston Lancashire UK    Our Lady's High School Preston, Lancashire UK .

I'm passionate about Moodle and using web 2.0 tools to inspire and motivate students. I manage several geography websites and run a personal blog www.moodleblog.org  about my experiences with Moodle.

Mary's Top 10 Tools as at 5 August 2008

1. Moodle: the most popular, the most customizable, the most community driven VLE in existence

2. Wordpress – having dabbled in Dreamweaver and other programs I find the ease of use anywhere and the huge choice of free beautiful templates is dragging me more and more away from conventional web design.

3. Opera web browser – it’s faster than the others and I love the speed dial facility in the latest version

4. Irfanview – free quick and easy way to create or edit images in a hurry

5. Twitter – putting aside the bacon sandwich banalities it has proven to be a great connector of like minded colleagues world wide

6. Adobe Captivate – expensive but the best of the paid bunch I feel, though Wink’s a good free alternative. 

7. Audacity – who needs anything more complex or pricey?

8. Googledocs – work from home; collaborate and chat at the same time!

9. Hotpotatoes – as basic or as complex as you want to make it; a wonderful tool for engaging students and saving yourself time marking!

10. Notepad – does what it says – simple way to edit files, keep reminders and generally be unpretentiously useful