My Top Ten Tools for Jane Hart

Jane Hart asked me to add my own top ten list to the mix.

I'm not a techie -- far from it. I'm an instructional designer with an emphasis on writing and schmoozing. For the most part, I like tools that are easy to use, easy to learn, look good, and create good-looking output.

Here goes:

1) The Google Brand

• iGoogle My starting point for just about every online activity.
• Google Reader All the news I need to know about e-Learning in one place.
• Google Alerts A nice adjunct to Google Reader; I'm always discovering something new via my "instructional design" alert.
• Gmail Gmail love.

2) FireFox I made the switch from IE 6 a few months ago and I love it. Although I think my love affair is mostly with the Tab feature, which IE has as well.

3) Blogger It's part of the Google brand, but it merits its own line item. Blogger is what I started with, so I feel sort of stuck with it. It does the job.

4) Adobe Flash I don't actually develop a thing with Flash myself, but our designers and programmers do some fabulous stuff with it! As an instructional designer, I feel like I can design just about anything and these really smart people can do something with it in Flash.

5) SnagIt Great for screen captures.

6) Microsoft PowerPoint Yes, there's lots of groaning about PowerPoint. But I like to use it as a simple wireframe tool. I can't program to save my life, but I can create a course flow mockup using PowerPoint that gets my ideas across to those who can make it look really good.

7) MediaWiki Wiki love. And I've only been using it for my own project documentation. Haven't even gotten into the collaborative aspect.

8) Facebook It's only been a few weeks, but Facebook has given me a whole new warm and fuzzy feeling. I got a cupcake for my birthday! What could be better than that?

9) Bugtracker by FogBugz We've been using this bug tracking software in-house for the last few months. It's inexpensive, easy to use, customizable, and sends email notifications when bugs come in and when they get resolved.

10) Paper Call me old school, but I still like to take notes with pen and paper. I carry a composition book around with me most of the time to record meeting notes, brainstorm, jot down other peoples' great ideas, and doodle.