Talkin' 'bout my cerebration.

Every worker has a toolkit.  In the kit are tried and tested tools they can rely on to enable effective and productive work.  A teacher is no different.  We all have toolkits, and our toolkits are all individualised – different from each other.  The rapid expansion of technology has enabled this richness in teaching toolkits.  I have my particular favourites that I will use consistently, and others that are replaced when something more functional appears.  However for me the key value is its functionality for my teaching and my students learning.

There are so many tools out there, to list a top ten would be only a point in time reflection.  The world has moved beyond lists for the effective management of data.  For me, I need a range of tools that I can search quickly to determine which is most appropriate for the task at hand.  THis is particularly important when providing advice to students on what tools they should use.  I always strive to offer my students options, then encourage them to make a judgement and choice.  My only pre-requisite is that the software must be legally free.  I have always found a free tool, or group of free tools, that could achieve any result desired by any teacher or student.  Sometimes they choose not to use the free tools, but this is their choice.  I feel contented as I have been able to show them the free option exists.

So how do I manage my toolkit.  I used to carry around a 4GB USB stick that stored a range of installation files and portable applications.  However my toolkit has expanded beyond the storage capability of this USB stick.  For a time I went to 2 x 4GB sticks.  But this was inevitably risky, often I would forget one stick or lend one to someone and not retrieve it efficiently.  I have now moved to a portable HDD.  But this has resulted in a cluttered mess of install files, and as we all know a program’s install file may not naturally be named logically similar to the program.  Apparently I am not bright enough to consider renaming files until I decide I urgently need a particular one.

I need to find a tagging process for this. Perhaps Evernote can help me.  I have not looked into Evernote to se if it has this capability but it is pretty useful for most other things so I should be able to find a way for it to manage this also.

Discovery of tools to trial is never difficult.  There are a range of blogs and podcasts I subscribe to that provide never ending lists of tools to trial.  Some reviewers do a great job of exploring pedagogical application of these tools, whereas other times I need to play, think and trial.  As an attempt to make this process easier for others on this journey with digital pedagogy, I have decided to publish a regular, brief podcast describing one tool at a time how I apply each to my context.  If you think this can help you then listen here.  You’ll need to excuse audio quality, I’m still learning.

One way I will use this podcast, is as I research / review each tool I will be able to tag it in whatever management process I deem useful.  This will enable me to search effectively, or at least more effectively than I am currently.  If only I knew about tagging before I started collecting all these tools.