Top 100 Learning Tools for 2013

Here it is, patient readers. Jane Hart's popular-vote list of tools you should be looking at if you're pondering digital life in teaching and learning. Regarding the Top Ten, I don't have much to say about them except "Well of course!"  - similar to past years and make perfect sense - but after that things start to look interesting.

Take a look at the top shifts:

• Skydrive shot up +55 positions
• Keynote shot up +40 positions
• iMovie shot up +32 positions
• Tumblr shot up +30 positions
• Symbaloo shot up +29 positions

Now, that's a movement of ideas and suggests some interesting and more visual approaches to learning and knowledge-sharing. Well, let's ignore Skydrive, which is just Microsoft pushing their cloud file storage into educational licensing. This brings it to #43, far behind Google Drive (#2) and distracts us from what we mean by a learning tool.

Some in the cognitive science world say that knowledge and learning have changed in the digital age and are no longer what we know/have memorized ("Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere...blah blah blah, Google the rest). Now, it's how we find and organize and make sense of what we need to know.

So, in an age of insane amounts of digital resources and sites and noise, you'll see organizational tools up near the top. That makes sense. AND you'll see new media resources - sharing/creating/publishing - finding new places near the top. Visit Jane's list, and if you see a top tool you don't know, create an account and check it out. It's sure to have value.

Until today, I was clueless to the existence of Symbaloo. My account is now up and it's my home page in three browsers. It's beautiful! And makes me feel efficient. Or at least not lost in sea of my own links, sites, obligations. As soon as I have a few moments, I'll install it on my Android phone. Isn't technology just the best fun?

Now, back to work!

Symbaloo tiles linked from tinyurl.com/symtiltes