The last few weeks have been busy as the silly season wound down and the focus was to get back to work and look forward to 2015.
I’ve been mindful that I haven’t been blogging as frequently and instead, my time being taken up with client work, catching up with reading of articles on the internet as well investing in my own professional and personal development. In a way, it’s been beneficial to me to reflect on what I’d like to achieve in 2015 and put some goals down on paper.
I have had a few requests to give presentations or webinars related to how people can use social media apps and tools for their own learning over the coming year. Also, I have kindly been invited by David Hopkins to review his new upcoming book The Really Useful EdTech Book which is timely for these pieces of work.
In the end, they’re just tools…
There’s no reason to be fearful of them or discount them for your work, your classroom or your own personal purposes.
Many people have asked me what my preferred platform or tools are for working, connecting and learning. In truth, I’m not loyal to any. I like to dabble to find the ones that are “fit for purpose”.
I have an Apple iPhone; a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet, I use Google Chrome and the various apps and tools associated with the platforms – and I also use a myriad of different web based apps too. When I was working within an organisation, I even used the apps that the enterprise social networking platform had (eg. Yammer has a huge app directory of work and productivity related apps that can work on the platform).
Depending on what device determines what app I’ll use for what purpose.
To me, it’s not the tool itself – it’s the behaviour – the attitude of experimenting with it and “giving it a go” and then making some personal judgments on if (or how) this tool will work for you in your own contexts.
For me: it’s important that the app is:
- Quick to learn and immediately apply
- Work and be shared across all platforms
- Do what I need it to do in as fewer clicks as possible
- Be right for the job (bells and whistles not important)
How Do I Find New Apps?
I save all articles, tweets, Facebook posts into an Evernote folder titled EdTech and revisit this once a week usually on Sunday evenings which is my quiet time for experimenting with new apps.
I read the review of the app (whether it’s on iTunes or Google Play or Google Chrome Web Store depending on what device I’m using), download the app and then play with it! It’s that simple. I’ve stumbled upon some great finds this way. The majority of apps that I’m interested are relate to business, productivity, photography, learning, health and well being.
I also subscribe to Apps Gone Free on iTunes which pushes out suggested apps every day (fair enough that many are games but there’s a useful one that pops up every so often) and follow boards on ScoopIt which is abundant in ideas in particularly, Robin Good’s (content curator) ScoopIt page as well as Ana Cristina Pratas Digital Delights for Learners.
Some other sites that I regularly trawl through are:
- Cool Tools for 21st Century Learners
- Free Technology for Teachers
- Make Use Of (there have been some great finds in here with Google Chrome Cast which I have also been using frequently)
- Top 100 Tools for Learning (I’ve gone through each of these which is a MUST for any Learning and Development professional)
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what app or tool you use. There are simply too many out there to choose from but the adventure is playing around with a selection and then using the ones that are right for your context and purpose.
Have you got any apps or tools that you use and would like to share?
Instructive post for a software vendor like me. Thank you.
Second though. I have the feeling that for you apps are utilities like Internet, water, power. Any vendor can be replaced by any other and at anytime. From vendors try to build barriers to prevent it precisely. Virality and social being used for this purpose as well. You seem indifferent to it.
Say if you build your network on LinkedIn you are not going to switch overnight to Facebook for Work if only because your network would not follow you. same for apps. If you use Evernote or Trello before you could switch to another vendor you will have to deal with data migration.
Of course all vendors offers tools to export everything, and import competitors data but it’s far from automatic.
Other option that comes to my mind is that you are just talking about single features apps. The app to do this, the app to do that. Such apps keep little data, little history and customization they can be use and disgarded the next hour. Even an app like canva has some learning curve to get creative results. Switching app as a switching cost in loss of learning.
Thanks Bruno, I didn’t consider it from the perspective of the software vendor who obviously would be interested to know how their user would use their product/design/app. For me, the main stayers are the apps and tools that I need for work and where the majority of people/audience/clients are on (for my pesonal use). However, this changes with everyone. Some people have asked me “What should I use?” but I have a hard time answering because it really depends on a whole lot of factors for them. Personally, I need to experiment and just play around with many of them to see what would work for me – in so doing, I’m learning the pros and cons so I can best advise. I’m looking at it from the point of view of being able to provide different tools for the clients to explore themselves as opposed to saying, “I don’t know” or “here’s what I use”…
What is really interesting though is that as I’m dealing with clients who have enterprise systems such as SharePoint, there will be some time where they may leave their organisation and all their work, all their ‘work life’ in on SharePoint and they don’t have it stored anywhere else and they may have to start from scratch. This is going to be an interesting dilemma. Some of them don’t see the end picture especially if they’re still learning all this but the ones who have ‘got it’ have their bases covered.
Yes I know this problem. I set up an earlier company around an Exchange Server (Exchange was like a superset of Sharepoint) and I wrote all the procedures and support on it. I even wrote apps on top of it. Since we were Microsoft Partners we had all the SDKs. Kneaver started with a Sharepoint connector:) (still exists but not maintained).
Backup is still pretty easy because the format is “flat” like Evernote. Where it starts to be cruel is when you use apps and customs fields and forms (webparts?). Apps may introduce a level of complexity difficult to move somewhere else. Customs field may embody conventions meaningless on another system. For myself I exported everything first to mht files and then reloaded everything on a stand alone Kneaver.
I understand better your position in your post. To advise people on applications you need to understand their needs and their possibilities. I’ve seen many companies stucked with systems powerful but too sophisticated for their employees or with a learning curve too long. So if you are not in charge of following the implementation of the said system (and paid for it) you better stay clear of it because it can backfire.
I’m far from being technical and understand the ins and outs of this that’s why I advise my clients to have their IT department included in the discussions so hopefully we could work together on it. In my experience, when IT was included they were far more amenable to the proposals we were suggesting and they even gave us different ideas we hadn’t considered.
I’m curious to learn about your views on how much employees should be allowed or encouraged to keep from their contribution to the Organizational Knowledge. Companies complains about loss of knwoledge when their employees leave but don’t seem to care on the opposite. I think that if it was recognized that there is an intersection between Personal Knowledge and Organization Knowledge and it could be disconnected and persisted it would be a strong motivator for contributors.
I think that’s the million dollar question. Why do some people contribute and others don’t? What motivates one person over another? Maybe it’s something of (2) in this article http://switchandshift.com/how-collaborative-resiliency-can-save-your-company-and-your-life
but then again, I think it comes down to trust or dare I say it, “fear”. I keep coming back to that. If you have nothing to fear, you’re more likely to contribute and participate.
Love that you truly aren’t wedded to any particular vendor – e.g. a combo of apple and samsung mobile devices. I do too…although admittedly not by choice. Have a work ipad (as they seem to be the only ‘acceptable’ mobile device in our org), and samsung / android phone. In truth I’m probably more anti-than pro-Apple (I really don’t like the way they shoehorn you into itunes and restrict ability to do things like replace the battery…!) but this post is a good reminder that it’s always beneficial to keep an open mind – all tech have their pros and cons and inherent affordances and limitations.
Oh phew! I am not the only anti-Apple person for exactly the same reasons. I was beginning to think I was all alone in this world. I cringe every time I have to do an Apple update on my phone. And no, design and ‘beauty’ of the product is not a selling point for me. Am I too harsh?
Same here:)
The case of the book they removed a posteriori because it hurts laws of a country you are neither a resident or a citizen is a problem for me.
tools tools tools – I like it!
I’m firmly in the Apple camp as a hardware choice (iPhone and MacBook Pro – no interest in tablets particularly but if I had one it would be an iPad) – but I still like to pick and choose my apps – Google Maps for example is the definitive mapping tool so that’s the one I use – any my Google drive gets every bit as much use as my iDrive 🙂
Big thing for me is that any tool I use must be commutable – I don’t want something that only works on one platform or OS.
Lastly I like collaborative tools best of all 🙂
For me I find tools when I have a need (necessity as the mother of invention) then I go searching or via reading other people or chats or articles. The only problem with my non-exhaustive search is that I undoubtedly miss some good stuff on the way.
🙂
Nige
Thanks for the response Nigel, appreciated! I agree with the commutable tool as I’m now realising that there’s all sorts of different apps I use on my tablet (Android) versus ones on my iPhone. I like to experiment with both but the ones that are functional and useful for me (and constantly used) are the ones that are on both. I’ve come to the realisation that I have long missed some brilliant tools out there as I simply can’t keep up. Still, at least we have some up our sleeve!