Sharpest tools in the box

One of the longest running radio programmes on the BBC is Desert Island Discs. It has been on air almost every week since 1942, and it's remarkable to see that it has maintained its popularity for over 70 years. The secret of the programme is in its simplicity. Each programme features an interview with a celebrity, who is invited to bring a list of their 8 favourite music tracks and during the show they talk about why they chose them, thereby giving their listening audience an insight into their lives.

It would be easy to reproduce the same radio format using other favourite items. How about 8 favourite movies, or 8 favourite TV programmes? It would perhaps be interesting to hear about people's 8 favourite meals, or the 8 books they couldn't do without. What about technology? If I were to ask you what are the sharpest tools in your box, what would you say? What would be the 8 technologies you couldn't possibly do without?

Here are my 8 essential tools:

1) Twitter, because as I recently said in a YouTube video, it is immediate, social and personal. It connects me to my personal learning network (PLN) and is simple to use.
2) My laptops. I have an old, faithful laptop called Keith, which is now sadly in retirement, but still used occasionally to write a blog post. I also have a Netbook (known as Nigel), which is now on more or less permanent duty connected to my flatscreen television to display large screen live Twitter feeds in my home office. The laptop I now work on most of the time is my Chromebook (which has no name - it would be silly to give a Chromebook a name; they have no memory, they have no soul).
3) My iPad, which accompanies me on all my travels, keeping me in touch with e-mail, Twitter and other sites I visit regularly during a working day. It's all about connection.
4) Blogger, my blogging tool which hosts this blog and several more I run. My blog is my publishing tool, allowing me to get my thoughts and ideas out into the public where they can be discussed with others in my PLN.
5) YouTube. I discover so much great content on YouTube, and am also increasingly using it as a platform to share my own video blogs. YouTube is so simple to use, and so versatile and becomes a personal television broadcast channel for many. OK, there is a lot of rubbish on there, but if you use your digital literacies to discern the good from the bad, you'll find it is an incredible resource for learning and teaching.
6) My iPhone. I only use it for phone calls and texting and it's now officially obsolete, because it is an iPhone first edition. It may be worth something in a few years time, mainly as a museum piece.
7) Google. Many of the Google suite of tools have become quite important in my working day. Google Docs is great for sharing and collaborating on documents, and Google Scholar is good for keeping up with citations, publications and metrics. It goes without saying that Google search for me, is still one of the most powerful and far reaching tools I have discovered online.
8) My multi-standard power plug adaptor. It can be used in any country, and can connect any device to the power source of the country I am visiting. It has multiple interchangeable inputs and outputs. It even houses two USB connectors for my iPhone and iPad to charge up. I travel the world, and wouldn't be able to use any of the above tools easily if I didn't take it with me everywhere.

So those are my top 8 tools. Those are the 8 technologies I take with me everywhere I travel. Sure, I could do without most, if not all of them, but it would take a lot of adaptation, and I'm finding it hard to remember a time when I didn't have them, they all make my working life so much easier. What have I left out? Well, email and the Microsoft Office certainly, because Google tools can replace them easily. What are your 8 top tools?

Photo by Eric Bjerke


Sharpest tools in the box by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.