Tools of my trade

For a while now I have been thinking about the impact Web 2.0 has had on my life and my career, and often wherever I am speaking, I talk about one or more of the tools I have listed below. Here they are - the 10 Web tools I could not possibly do without...

Facebook - I tried several other social networking tools before Facebook, including Myspace and Bebo, and toyed with LinkedIn like everyone else. Although I'm a little tired of Facebook now, I still use it to keep in touch with friends and to send occasional messages. I got hooked on Farmville for a while, but it became a time-sink for me, so I have now kicked the habit. Facebook has a lot of potential to be harnessed as a learning tool, but there are questions over whether such an informal tool could, or should be used in formal education.

iGoogle - I use this tool to organise my weblinks and other content. It's simple and easy to use, and keeps all my important tools, including currency converters, news feeds and language translators in one convenient space.

Wiki - I use this tool (usually Wetpaint or Wikispaces) as an open, collaborative space for my student groups to work with. Several exercises are built into and around the communal use of wikis to create content throughout a module, and students generally get to grips with it very quickly and produce some valuable content, which they can return to time and time again.

Google Scholar - I come back to Scholar time and time again, often several times in one day, particularly when I'm doing some literature searching for an article, or simply to see who has cited who on a particular topic. You can track through the history of an article, and get a full picture of its influence and impact.

Flickr - I keep all my favourite photographs on four Flickr accounts such as this one and this one. Again, as with all Web 2.0 tools, Flickr allows people to share their content, and receive comments back from viewers. You can also join groups that have a similar interest to you, and exhibit your photographs to a specialist audience.

Delicious - Once I have found the stuff I want to keep, where better to store a link to it than on Delicious? If you haven't tried it yet, you will find that it is quite easy to use, and all you need do is to copy and paste the URL you wish to keep into the appropriate box. Once you store it, you can return anytime to access the content, and you can also see who else has stored it, search through their favourites, and find related stuff that is just as interesting to you.

Slideshare - I love this tool, because it enables me to keep all my slideshows, and also other documents, such as published articles (usually stored as pdf files) in one place. I can share them with anyone who is interested in seeing them, and can track the number of people who view them, receive comments from them, and converse with them through the discussion tools on the site.

Blog - My blog (Learning with 'e's') is probably my most powerful tool for reflecting, learning and professional development. Right here is the space on my personal web where I put down all my thoughts, ideas (some of them half-baked) and questions and share them with my personal learning network. The comments I receive back from you and other readers are invaluable to me, often cause me to think again, and provide me with further fuel to go away and create more ideas and content. Don't forget to comment today :-)

Search Engine - I almost always use Google, but increasingly other search engines are on the horizon for me including Bing and Yahoo. The concept of a search engine is not new, but we now tend to take it for granted, and it would be an impossible or extremely time consuming task to try to find what you are looking for in the huge storehouse of knowledge and content that is out there on the Web without the humble search engine.

Twitter - For me, Twitter is the ultimate tool for social networking, because its simple and easy to use, concise, and yet has a substantial power behind it. Many people don't get Twitter, because it takes some effort over a period of time to build up a critical mass of contacts within your personal network, but once you get over that hurdle, it is amazing how much content you can receive and send. Used in combination with other tools such as bit.ly (a URL shortener), Echofon or Tweetdeck, it is a deceptively powerful web tool.

I use all of the above tools fairly regularly, and most on a daily, or even hourly basis. Without their combined power of connection, sharing and amplification, it would be impossible for me to do my current job. In fact, I would go as far as to say that my current job would not exist without these tools. They are the tools of my trade. What are your top ten?

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