Do I Tool-Belt it?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_diamond/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

I have been thinking about this all day, mainly due to a conversation on the way in to work...

Why do I choose to use specific pieces of software and not others? (In my planning, learning,teaching of lessons and 1 to 1 with students)

What are my criteria to decide value?

As teachers we all seem to have favorites; these are almost 'go to' pieces of software/online tools, yet  we also try the new things that we find.

Today I have been trying to discover how I decide if it goes on to my "tool-belt" or it remains bookmarked for that rainy day.

To end up on my "tool-belt" it must meet the following criteria:

1. Be accessible to the students; easy to use, quick to pick up, add value to their lesson and be safe
2. Have a usable interface for me; save time (or use time effectively)
3. Be free to use

Examples of these tools I use daily if not weekly are:

• delicious.com - http://delicious.com/sfcart
• google reader (I really could not do without this. It allows me to learn)
• wallwisher.com
• wordle.net

Even though I have decided upon these criteria I must admit, occasionally for a bit of a sensory WOW  now and then I resort to:

• prezi.com
• glogster.com

what do you think? what do you use on your "tool-belt"?

Do not take it for granted!

This week I realised that I can not take online resources for granted. You have to have a backup plan...yesterday Wordle vanished. This is my favorite word cloud website as it is really straight forward to integrate in to lessons and the outcomes are very visual. There are other websites that produce similar word clouds but you get used to working with a particular tool, its like loosing your favourite pen; you can write with others but it is not the same.

Teaching and Learning-Sqworls

• Teaching and learning
• Mind-mapping
• Presentation
• Online Resources

These are the resources/programs and software that i have come across and are/might be useful.

New this week are tagul and visuwords.