What are the most popular digital tools for learning and why?
Source: VOTING 2024 – Top 100 Tools for Learning 2023 by Jane Hart
I have not reflected upon my top tools / workflow(s) for a few years, this therefore was a good excuse to stop and take stock.
As requested, here is my list of ten tools. Although not meant to be in any order, I have ordered my list based on use and importance:
- WordPress – WordPress is where I ‘collect the dots‘ in my ‘Collect‘ site and join them together in some sort of response in my main site. This has completely replaced my use of social bookmarking applications, such as Diigo, which I finally let go last year. Also, if I reply to anyone on the web, my reply starts on my site and is then syndicated elsewhere either via webmentions or manually.
- Libby (and BorrowBox, Libro.Fm, Spotify and Audible) – I (re)turned to reading/listening to books lately as my main source of ‘dots’. I have always read books, but they had become secondary to staying on top of various feeds. Now I often find myself churning through audiobooks on walks or while doing jobs around the house. My local library has a subscription with Libby by Overdrive, which I use to borrow books. However, I also use Bolinda Audio’s Borrowbox via the local library and Spotify at times, as well as purchase books from Libro.Fm and Audible.
- Moon+ Reader Pro – If I cannot find a book in audiobook, I will read it or listen to it on my Android phone via Moon+ Reader Pro. Although I have used Kindle in the past for this purpose, I like the options and flexibility that Moon+ Reader Pro provides. I also often use this app to annotate books that I listen to as audiobooks.
- Inoreader – For content online, I try and syphon everything through Inoreader, this includes Mastodon. Gone are my days of dipping in and out of streams. Sadly, I am no longer able to pull my Twitter feed into Inoreader, therefore I only use Twitter now to respond to certain people in certain situations.
- Pocket – When I find an interesting article, I often save it to Pocket to read or listen to later. However, I must admit, I do not get through my saves as I once did, especially after putting pause on my monthly newsletter.
- AntennaPod – I use AntennaPod for podcasts. It does what I need, but I really wish I had a cleaner way of collating what I listen to, other than sharing out elsewhere.
- Obsidian – I have started using Obsidian after discovering that I could easily pull all my annotations from Kindle with ease. I now pull my annotations from Moon+ Reader and keep track of the podcasts I listen to, sort of. I do not really use it to backlink etc, actually I do not use it that well, especially as I do not pay for it meaning that I have a vault on my phone and on my work computer. I often use it as a place to carve ideas out in Markdown. I used to use Trello for this, but it was feel a little too over-engineered for what I was trying to do, while I also use Literal a bit to track the books that I have been reading, but at the end of the day, Obsidian is (currently) my dumping ground.
- 1Password – I would not usually consider a password manager as a learning tool per se, but I cannot argue with Harold Jarche when he states that it “simplifies my online life and gives me more time for learning.”
- Google Sheets – As with 1Password, Google Sheets is not necessarily a tool that I learn from, but it is a tool that helps streamline a lot of my learning and makes it more ‘doable‘. For example, I realised that I did not have a clean process for recording my professional development required for my teacher registration, so I made a spreadsheet with a separate tab that allows me to collate the different standards associated with the learning.
- YouTube – I do not watch a lot of video, often preferring books and podcasts. However, there are times when I do look things up, check videos from channels I have subscribed to or saved to watch later after they have come up in my Inoreader feed.
ᔥ in top tools 2024 – Harold Jarche ()