10 Intriguing tools
Why intriguing tools?
The initial research for this website developed a list of 10 great tools and, in the process, I looked at several which, despite appearing to fit that list, had something about them which just didn’t quite sit well. These tools are not, as a result, useless – far from it. It is just that they intrigue, rather than commend themselves for use. That intrigue is, in large part, because they reveal deeper insights about the nature of knowledge networking and point the way for what additional tools are needed. In other words, this list of 10 tools exemplifies the way to think about Web 2.0 and e-learning, as much as being practical applications to implement it.
What is included?
As you can see from the foldout menu for these 10 tools in the navigation bar at the top of this page, these tools cover a very wide range. Here is a brief overview:
- Xtranormal- make animations using text
- Amap – argument mapping
- Wridea – idea generation
- Cohere – super-structures of knowledge
- Notaland – web collaboration space
- Prezi – alternative presentations
- Diigo – collective resource groups
- Newsmap – alternative Google news feed
- Wordle – wordcloud visualisations
- Wikimindmap – concept map from Wikipedia
In each case, I provide a basic overview of the service, then provide some idea of what intrigues me about the tool, before posing a pedagogic challenge. Where possible, I also list some alternatives and similar applications.
Overall…
These 10 applications show that sometimes, web based applications can be too simple or too complex or just not yet ready for use. I discussed several of these applications in my presentation of the top 10 tools.
Cohere, Prezi and Diigo, while significant, are perhaps too complex but still worth a closer look:
