My Top 10 Learning Tools for 2024

Jane Hart has surveyed and published the Top 100 Tools for Learning list for the last decade. Here are my current top tools, in no particular order.

1. Feedly—RSS lives! This app has been a lifeline for following blogs and other publications since I abandoned that social media site whose name shall not be mentioned. I start with reading every weekday and cannot catch up on everything. I am so proud of the community that keeps on blogging.
2. Wikipedia—I use Wikipedia, if not every day, most days. I also donate annually and would encourage you to do the same. Wikipedia is one of those last nice places on the Internet for me, and I learn a lot from the contributors who generously offer their expertise.
3. Bing – I know Google search is high on the list, but Google search has taken a solid nosedive in quality over the last few years. I have a couple of Windows machines I use in addition to some Apple devices, so I end up using Bing because it’s the default in MS Edge, and Duck Duck Go partnered with Bing in 2016, so I’m counting my DDG use as Bing. This year, I’ve been making use of Copilot through Bing. Overall, I’ve noticed no drop in my ability to find what I’m looking for compared to G Search.
4. MS 0365 – when you work for an organization as a learning professional that uses the enterprise version of this, it ends up on your top-used list. This goes beyond the Office suite for me, though. This year, I abandoned the LMS in favour of Sharepoint for a specific program I’ve been working on. I’ve been able to leverage Teams, Sharepoint, Bookings, and more to create the digital side of the program. Using pages in Sharepoint, I’ve made a visually appealing landing page for our participants, if I say so myself.
5. Moodle – speaking of LMSs for everything else, this is what I’m using these days. Working in higher ed in Canada, only four products would appear here on the list. Like all LMSs, there are things to like and be frustrated with, but in particular, what I miss about Brightspace is the intelligent agents. That’s the only thing I miss from that one. On the plus side, Moodle is hooked up with Bootstrap, so you can make pretty decent content pages, although the viewport is pretty tiny due to the platform’s three-column format.
6. Camtasia – this is my current go-to video editing software. I purchased it a couple of years ago because Techsmith still has perpetual licenses (disappointing news this year). It’s simple enough to get going with Camtasia. It has a built-in screen recorder and the ability to move in and out of Audiate for audio editing, bringing edits back to your video workflow. The built-in effects are simple but get you where you need them, and the export options are great. I don’t use Audiate as much as the other Techsmith products, so it doesn’t crack my top 10.
7. Snagit – I use this every day, from building documentation to sharing quick tips with colleagues, capturing screen items to report bugs, etc. I used the Mac OS screenshot tool and preview to mark up documents, etc. Still, Snagit has enough additional tools to justify the cost, including the ability to create animated GIFs and videos with many annotation options. I’m glad I caught the perpetual license when I could.
8. Affinity suite—I did my best to abandon Adobe when I could and made the move to Affinity years ago. I like the toolset, and the three apps work together seamlessly. I may not use them every day, but this is where I reach first when I need to do some graphics work. One of the main selling features of using Adobe here was that Affinity offered perpetual licenses. They were bought by Canva this year (yeah, it’s been a disappointing toolset year), so we’ll see how long that sticks.
9. Edge – I mentioned earlier that I’m using their products more because I’m often on Windows machines. I was skeptical about using Edge, but it’s not quite the memory hog that Chrome is. I now have tabs in the column instead of along the top, which makes it a bit easier to find what I’m looking for when I get loads of tabs going. I often use built-in read-aloud and immersive reader tools, accessibility insights to check my builds for elearning and web pages, and the coupon finder for online shopping. Overall, I’m impressed.
10. Apple Podcasts – similar to Feedly, this is what I use to grab up all my favourite podcasts for daily listening. I wish there were features for bookmarking segments because I’ll often be on the road to something and hear a fantastic idea or about a resource, but it’s hard to revisit things in podcasts. I’m all ears if you know of a podcast app with better features.

Honourable mentions

1. WordPress—I’m still here, but my blogging isn’t what it used to be. I also haven’t done any project work in WordPress this year, which is disappointing but reflective of changes in my work life.
2. Grammarly – I do use this every day, but the list was what I thought of first.