Which tools to use and why?
For most things you want to do on the Web there is usually a choice of tools available. You may need to select the best one(s) to suit your situation.
If you work for one organisation, chances are they'll already have a bank of tools for you to use. If you work across organisations, you may wish to use whatever tools the organisations have in place and then supplement them with your own. Or, if you prefer, you can pick some tools that work well for you and encourage others to use them too!
Popular tools
Some tools are popular and commonly used time and again. Depending on the situation they include:
- Email (individual and group)
- Discussion board
- Survey/quiz/crossword puzzle
- Instant messaging
- Voice chat (Voice Over the Internet Protocols - VOIP)
- Short Message Service (SMS)
- Open Source Learning Management Systems (LMS)– because they’re free, open source and have many of the above features
- Mind maps
- Blogging (web logging - creating a log or journal on the web using text, voice/audio or photos)
Now, the tools evaluated ..
Anecdotal evidence suggests that people who work electronically choose their tools according to personal preference and what works in a given context. The following information and linked pages describe a range of commonly used tools. Each summary includes:
- a description of the tool itself
- features
- cost
- what it's used for
- why it's good
- problems/downside
- examples to check out (places to play are marked with an *)
- alternatives
- criteria/factors re tools and processes
Not all of the noted tools are free or open source (yet!). For a quick reference guide to free and open source educational software, click to view Marty Cielens’ great list of Open Source tools for training and business.
Email i.e sending and receiving of messages electronically.
Discussion Boards
Discussion boards provide a space where people can post messages and respond to what others have posted. They can be publicly available but in the education context many are private and specific to a group in a learning situation. These often require a login and password to access and post messages (as do some publicly available ones).
Discussion boards or forums tend to come as part of a package rather than as standalone beasts. For example, Pelion's website which uses Moodle, has a number of discussion boards as well as chat, links to other sites, resources etc. Other sites, like Yahoo, provide discussion boards which can be set up as list-servs (like group email but you don’t have to remember to press ‘Reply all’ as everyone on the list automatically gets all responses), calendar, photos, database, chat, links, polls –you name it and they probably have it (or will have tomorrow). There are so many options that knowing what you want to do, or use the tool for, becomes critical.
- Quick Topic
- Moodle - EdNA Groups (Education Network Australia Online Groups)
- Community Spaces - Learning Communities Catalyst
- Community spaces - connected community (mc2)
- Community spaces – Yahoo! Groups