OPLS blog

Not sure if this is a trend that has caught on in other countries, but there has been a spate of television programmes over the past few years in the UK devoted to lists. Top 100 films, Top 100 Britons, Top 100 children’s programmes, etc, ad infinitum.

I blame Nick Hornby, of course, and his first novel, High Fidelity (1995), in which the owner of a record shop, Robert, and his two employees, Dick and Barry, create all manner of lists to help them get through the day. Memorable examples include “Top 5 musical crimes committed by Stevie Wonder in the 70s and 80s”, or “Top 5 songs about death”.

Well, I don’t blame him really, since it was a novel idea at the time and, as Heppell says, one of the true measures of creativity and ingenuity is the extent to which it is copied by others.

I doubt, though, if the compilers of this latest list I’ve come across were thinking of Nick Hornby when they created the Top 100 tools for learning - a list generated from 158 learning professionals (from education and workplace learning) who shared their top 10 tools for both their own personal learning/productivity and for creating learning.

I think the list is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly it has a browser, Firefox, in the top 2. I’m assuming, here, it is more to do with the plethora of add-ons and extensions available and the fact that it is making significant advances in terms of discoverability.

Secondly, Microsoft Word has fallen from 10th position last year to joint 22nd in 2008. With the growth of Google Docs, Zoho and wikis etc, I wouldn’t mind betting Word falls out of the top 50 completely this time next year.

Thirdly, I was struck by the number of wikis in the top 50 (wikispaces, PBwiki and WetPaint) and certainly from my own experience, I would see these moving up the list next year, with Google Sites (formerly know as JotSpot) perhaps making an appearance too.

I encourage you to look at the list when you have time. There are some good pointers and it was good to see an IB teacher as one of the contributors, namely Richard Allaway, head of Geography at the International School of Toulouse in France.  Richard has been a leading light in terms of using Web 2.0 technologies to support teaching and learning, and collaborated with Natasha Lardner and Geography Jim on this wiki development in Wikispaces (something we blogged about here).  He’s worth following.

Oh, and for those who don’t have time to look but are curious as to what came out at No.1…

…it was del.icio.us.

Although “best of…” posts tend to appear reasonably frequently, the good ones are worth their weight in gold. Here are a couple of blog posts summarising the best Web 2.0 applications of 2007, in so far as they relate to teaching and learning, and as proposed by Larry Ferlazzo and Silvia Tolisano:

Larry Ferlazzo’s best Web 2.0 applications for 2007

Langwitches best web 2.0 applications for elementary school

You are, of course, free to agree or disagree.

Please note that these were shared via the Classroom 2.0 network on Ning.