Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012

A learning tool is a tool to create or deliver learning content/solutions for others, or a tool for your own personal or professional learning.
Here is the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 as voted for by 582 learning professionals worldwide.

This year  I’ve highlighted where the Top 100 Tools are mainly being used – ie for Personal/Professional use, in Education and/or in the Enterprise.  (Please note that the absence of a checkmark in a column does not mean that the tool is not, cannot or should not be used for that purpose!)

Touch-Screen Tablets: The Perfect Tech for Kindergarteners

Using technology that lets our youngest students get hands-on with learning at an early age makes sense.

Think about one of the main activities most people associate with kindergarten: finger painting. It’s a simple, messy, fun way for kindergarteners to learn about color and expand the boundaries of their imagination.
But with tablets, and an app that simulates finger painting, teachers can unleash the artistic potential of their fresh-eyed students — without all of the usual mess and cleanup.

Google Announces 100 Live Hangouts For Teachers Around The World

Google is celebrating World Teachers’ Day with a couple big announcements. In an effort to increase the connections between educators and learners around the world, they’ve assembled a whole slew of interesting Google+ Hangouts as well as a daily topic for each day of the week.

From learning how to flip your classroom to chatting with Sal Khan, there will be hangouts for an array of interests. Here’s the skinny from Google:

Enabling classrooms to become successfully low tech

PHUKET: Approaches to education have changed quite dramatically in the past 60 years. Being able to recite your 23 Times Table, reel off capitals of obscure cities like Kiribati (Tarawa) and generally recall facts from rote learning was once seen by many as indicative of a ‘man of letters’.

Nowadays, however, modern approaches to learning incorporates everything from knowledge of brain anatomy to studies in holding attention spans based on approaches learned from video games and keeping classrooms at ideal room temperatures.

iPad trumps PC in sales to schools for first time: Report

PC sales to schools in the U.S. are seeing its long-established lead in the education market overtaken by Apple’s iPad, according to a new report.

While PC education shipments fell by 265,000 units, or 13.9 percent, from the June quarter a year ago, Apple sold almost a million iPads to K-12 in June, according to a note to investors sent by Needham & Company analyst Charles Wolf.

New technology brings new approach to teaching

It's no surprise that innovative technology has revolutionized the way we perform many tasks in our everyday lives, and the use of technology in college education is no exception. The standard university education has been given a much-needed facelift, integrating social media, handheld devices and online courses into its already rigorous curriculum.

Employee EdTech: Learn27 Education Platform

Learn27 is not for kids. It still counts as education technology, only for employees working in businesses that already spend too much on that exact thing.
Learn 27 is an e-learning startup that allows any organization to create a virtual learning center and offer relevant courses. A business can set up a professional account and create a kind of tech academy that benefits from collaborative learning. You can get feedback from other employees and partners and upload instructional videos and text information.
Like several learning platforms these days, Learn27 gamifies their curriculum, including badges and points to keep folks motivated. (For more on the idea of badging, read one of our earlier articles.)