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This isn't a posting on "workplace learning today" as a topic, but rather a way of introducing any readers not familiar with the great group blog that goes by that name from Brandon Hall Research. The Workplace Learning Today blog is must reading for those in the Learning and Development industry, and should be one of the few blogs you read even if you think you only have time to read a small number of industry blogs -- it should be in your top five for sure.
I say that with certainty because of the type of blog it is and the value that the researchers at Brandon Hall bring to their readers. Rather than provide in-depth analysis or lengthy opinions on matters of concern to learning leaders, WLT focuses on "quick hits," on keeping you updated on all the news and happenings that matter to you as a learning professional. Very few significant happenings escape their collective eyes, so by subscribing to WLT, you can rest assured that you won't miss much.
Personally, I check their blog each day, by means of my personal iGoogle homepage. I have added a widget on this page that displays the WLT RSS feed that provides me linkes to their latest entries. I can generally tell from their entry titles if I'm interested enough to read their brief write-ups, and then from there if I'm interested enough to click through to whatever resource or article they are linking to.
Others might just include WLT as one of the many blogs they read via their favorite RSS reader, such as Google Reader. I recommend that you place WLT at the top of your feed list though, because they update it often and you are best off checking it several times a week.
Technobabble recently announced its Top Analyst Blogs for 2009. And congrats to Workplace Learning Today as it was rated third out of a field of 400 analyst blogs! Since starting the blog in August 2008, Brandon Hall analysts Janet Clarey, Gary Woodill, Tom Werner, and Richard Nantel have published more than 1,800 stories related to workplace learning and talent management. Keep up the great work!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
It was March of this year when I last highlighted the great work that Jane Hart does on behalf of the Learning and Development industry. So it is high time that I give an update, and Jane has provided me the perfect excuse as she recently announced the final results of the 2009 edition of her survey of Tools for Learning. The final list of 100 top tools was compiled from the contributions of 278 learning professionals worldwide—from both education and workplace learning—who were each asked to provide a list with descriptions of their top 10 learning tools (broadly defined). As always, Jane provides her valuable data in multiple formats, this year providing both a SlideShare presentation that walks you through the list one tool at a time, as well as a complete listing from 1-100.
So what learning tool tops the chart? It is one that will come as no surprise to those who have discovered its power and value: Twitter. I have several times posted here about the value I and many others in our industry get from Twitter on a daily basis, so let this top ranking serve as a wake-up call for anyone reading this posting who hasn't yet given Twitter a serious try. I'll note also that Twitter didn't just come in first place, it did so by a very wide margin! Here are the top 10 tools for 2009, with the number of votes each received.
- 159 Twitter
- 95.5 Delicious
- 79.5 YouTube
- 79 Google Reader
- 78.5 Google Docs
- 69 Wordpress
- 64 Slideshare
- 56 Google Search
- 54 Audacity
- 54 Firefox
Jane's full listing table provides the rankings for each tool in the 2008 and 2007 survey results, which allows us to learn that, for instance, Twitter has climbed the list from 43rd place in 2007 to 11th place in 2008 to finally taking the top spot away from Delicious (which had been first in 2008, and second in 2007). The growth of YouTube—not just in terms of the number of videos it serves up daily, but in how people perceive it—is evident by its climb from a modest 18th place in 2008 to 3rd in 2009. And another big climb is evident for SlideShare, which went from 31st in 2007 to 20th in 2008 to 7th in 2009. Outside this top 10, a few other tools rising sharply from 2007 to 2009 include Ning (31 to 11), VoiceThread (101 to 19), Jing (unranked to 20), and Google Apps (101 to 38). Jane also gives her own review of the biggest gainers and losers in this year's survey results, and separately wrote to highlight 10 of the tools that made their first appearance in the list and that she thinks "are useful, innovative, cost effective, and certainly worth considering for 2010."
Jane further provides a useful alternate approach to organizing the results: by category. Here, she separates the tools into 27 different categories, such as blogging tools, micro-blogging tools, presentation tools, productivity tools, and so on, allowing you to quickly see the top-X in each category.
You can also view the complete list of the professionals who participated, and read their individual top-10 lists—a great deep dive for those of you who closely follow particular industry experts. If you are curious, you can see my top-10 listing, which was posted very early in 2009 (I was the third person to participate this year.)
As if doing the annual survey exercise wasn't enough, Jane also maintains an overall tools directory which this year has topped 3,000 different tools! As Jay Cross recently remarked at his blog, I don't know how Jane does it!
If you find these resources as valuable as I do, be sure to send Jane a note to thank her for her hard work in creating and maintaining these and the many other resources at her website: Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies. It's great stuff!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
Did you know that Element K is now on Twitter? We started using Twitter as an organization in late June, and you can follow us via the account "Element_K," which can be found at http://www.twitter.com/Element_K. Through this account we are sharing links to interesting industry articles, blog postings, resources and more, as well as announcements about Element K webinars and other happenings.
Beyond that news, back in February I wrote a posting here at Element K Blog—"Twitter, Twitter, Tweet, Tweet"—intended to help people in the L&D industry get started with Twitter. Since then, of course, Twitter has exploded in popularity, brought on in part by celebrity and media attention, but also by very legitimate uses of Twitter, ranging from its role in political events, to its corporate use for marketing, customer service, and even sales, to its use by everyday working professionals as a powerful information gathering tool. It's this last use-case that I still think is important for learning and development professionals to take seriously.
With that in mind, and because it comes up at every industry event I participate in, I wanted to provide another posting on this topic. Refer back to my earlier posting for a basic introduction and valuable links for more information—there are many more I could share that have come along since, but you only need so many "Twitter for newbies" articles to get you started.
More importantly, I wanted to provide an updated list of leaders in the L&D field that you might consider "following" on Twitter (most, but not all of whom, use Twitter regularly). For each, simply visit http://www.twitter.com/username, such as http://www.twitter.com/Element_K:
- Element_K (that’s us!)
- ThomasStone (that's me! Thomas Stone of Element K)
- AndersGronstedt / Anders Gronstedt
- arossett / Allison Rosset
- billbrandon / Bill Brandon
- bjschone / B.J. Schone
- bschlenker / Brent Schlenker
- cammybean / Cammy Bean
- c4lpt / Jane Hart
- cliveshepherd / Clive Shepherd
- CushingAnderson / Cushing Anderson
- Dave_Ferguson / Dave Ferguson
- da5idm / David Mallon
- dmetcalf / David Metcalf
- Downes / Stephen Downes
- dwilkinsnh / David Wilkins
- edwsonoma / Ellen Wagner
- emasie / Elliott Masie
- gsiemens / George Siemens
- grantricketts / Grant Ricketts
- GuildMeister / David Holcombe
- gwoodill / Gary Woodill
- hfisktwit / Heidi Fisk
- hjarche / Harold Jarche
- JaneBozarth / Jane Bozarth
- jaycross / Jay Cross
- jclarey / Janet Clarey
- jcmeister / Jeanne Meister
- Josh_Bersin / Josh Bersin
- judyb / Judy Brown
- KevinDJones / Kevin D. Jones
- kkapp / Karl Kapp
- KoreenOlbrish / Koreen Olbrish
- lancedublin / Lance Dublin
- maggiez99z / Margaret Martinez
- mcookebersin / Mike Cooke
- mobilemind / Tom King
- moehlert / Mark Oehlert
- Quinnovator / Clark Quinn
- RayJimenez / Ray Jimenez
- Stevehoward999 / Steve Howard
- tonykarrer / Tony Karrer
- twerner1952 / Tom Werner
- WillWorkLearn / Will Thalheimer
- writetechnology / Michelle Lentz
No doubt I am missing several key people, but this is a good list to get you started (Not seeing someone you are looking for? Try the much larger directory of people in the L&D field who are using Twitter provided by Jane Hart's excellent Connexions Directory.)
Consider also the following industry organizations and magazines that are on Twitter, as many provide valuable links and news as well:
- astd / ASTD's primary account
- ASTDPR / ASTD Communications
- Bersin / Bersin and Associates
- BHallResearch / Brandon Hall Research
- CLOmedia / Chief Learning Officer magazine
- TrainingIndustr / TrainingIndustry.com
- TalentMgtMag / Talent Management magazine
You would also do well to look up any regional L&D-relevant groups that you belong to or would like to keep tabs on, such as regional ASTD chapters. Many of these are now using Twitter, and I'd recommend following them to see what they are sharing.
Happy tweeting…or is that twittering?
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
In March, I did a post on Jane Hart's impressive work in pulling together information on the top tools used for learning and personal productivity (and much more). Now I'd like to put my spotlight on another leader in our industry who we all owe a debt of gratitude for the many resources he provides: Tony Karrer.
I'll start with Tony's website eLearning Learning. This site describes itself as "Community assembled resources to learn about eLearning." The core purpose of the site is to aggregate and categorize content from many of the top blogs and other sites in the world of e-Learning. Many of my favorite industry blogs are included, such as Clive on Learning, Bozarthzone, and ASTD’s Learning Circuits Blog. Earlier this year, Element K Blog joined these and many other blogs as part of eLearning Learning's impressive dataset, allowing our postings to appear there and show up in the search results. I recommend this resource as one of your first resources to try whether you are searching for information on e-Learning tools, platforms, best practices, or just about any related topic.
In my view, just as valuable is Tony's own blogging at eLearning Technology. Tony is prolific, writing a combination of well-crafted essays and shorter, provocative entries. He also provides weekly lists of the most popular articles from eLearning Learning and other sources, which can be a great way to make sure you don't miss any of the past week's industry highlights. In fact, he has provided so many great posts at his blog over the years that he has taken the time to provide a First Time Visitor Guide, that takes you through the many topics he has covered. Tony's blog has quite a following, so the comments his posts generate often have some great insight as well. This is all why, in my posting in February, I included this blog in the several dozen I pulled together for quick importing into your RSS feed reader.
In addition to his e-Learning resource site and e-Learning blog, Tony is also one of the industry experts you'll want to follow on Twitter. You can follow Tony himself via his account @TonyKarrer. But, you can also get the latest posts from eLearning Learning by following @eLearningPosts.
And if that wasn't enough, Tony organizes virtual events that bring together key industry leaders. One recent event was the eLearning Tour, which brought together Judy Brown, Bob Mosher, and Karl Kapp to present on mobile learning, performance support, games and simulations, and more. If you missed this event, you can still see the videos of the sessions since Tony has made them available for free at his blog. Another such event was the latest LearningTrends virtual event, which took place today and involved many well-known leaders in our industry such as George Siemens, Will Thalheimer, and others.
Much thanks to Tony for all of his on-going efforts!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies continues to do our entire industry a great service. If you haven't visited her website recently, check it out and be amazed at the information she has pulled together on the top tools used for learning and personal productivity.
For the past several years, Jane has asked e-learning professionals what learning and personal productivity tools—broadly construed—would make their personal Top 10. She has then aggregated the results, and provided them back to us in various formats. The results are fascinating and enlightening, and are a great way to learn about new tools (or at least tools that are new to you!).
I participated in both 2007 and 2008, and I am now one of the early participants to update my Top 10 list for 2009. This year Jane has two separate lists: “Top 100 Tools For Learners” and “Top 100 Tools For Learning Professionals”. I’ll be checking her site here throughout the year to monitor the growth of these lists.
To see the Top-100 list for 2008, which was finalized in October, you can view it as either a ranking table or a SlideShare presentation. To give you a sense for the types of tools that people are including, Jane has organized this same Top-100 list by category as a "Toolset for Learning 2009". The categories are:
- Web Browsers and Extensions
- Social Bookmarking
- RSS Tools
- Email Tools
- Productivity Tools
- Personal Start Page
- Document Tools
- Presentation Tools
- Imaging Tools
- Audio/Podcasting Tools
- Video Tools
- Screen Capture and Screencasting Tools
- Blogging, Wiki, and Web Authoring Tools
- Course Authoring and Course Management Tools
- Interactivity Tools
- Live Communication Tools
- Social Networking Tools
To see what individual contributors (all 223 of us!) had to say for our Top-10 lists in 2008, see the "Top 10 Tools for 2008 Alphabetical List."
If you'd like to see the top FREE tools, Jane has pulled those ones out in a Top-25 list.
Or if you just want more tools, free and otherwise, see her massive directory of tools. Is 2,700 tools, all nicely sorted by category, enough for you?
Lastly, I've summarized some of the information Jane provides on learning and personal productivity tools, but her site provides much more, including a Twitter directory of learning professionals, a series of articles that introduce you to the world of social learning, a library of reading lists on a wide range of topics, and much more.
If you find these resources as valuable as I do, be sure to send Jane a note to thank her for her hard work in creating and maintaining this resource. It's great stuff!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
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