I’ve been running (facilitating) a course for Languages teachers based on the 23 Things programme here at Murdoch University (which was in turn adapted from the http://macetg.wordpress.com/about-learning-20-mac/ project at McMaster University Library) for a year and a half now. In it we explore 23 ICT Things that are useful for learning/teaching Languages both in terms of classroom practice and in terms of professional learning. We look at Things like blogging, Wordle, Voki, RSS, Glogster, and so on. It’s been quite successful because teachers are introduced to these tools over a period of time and they do have time to explore them. It’s also been great for me as a facilitator because I’ve had extended contact with participants and get to hear about how they’ve gone with the Things in their classroom contexts rather than being more “fly in fly out.”

Recently, a tweet from @jessmcculloch (Twitter is another Thing!) got me thinking. She was moaning about transcription work, and I immediately suggested using Transcriva) to make transcription easier. I realised that I use a lot of tools that others may also find useful, but maybe don’t know about. Hence this post. What are my favourite Things in academia? For working, learning and teaching in a university context and for engaging in research? What would I put in “23 Things for Academics”?

So here’s my list (in no particular order!):

1. Trascriva: a great tool for transcription on the Mac. I don’t know what I’d do without it! Probably curse a lot more at MS Word
2. Blogging: You’re reading it now. My blog(s) act as an online notebook – the hub of my learning, recording, and doing!
3. Zotero: A reference/citation manager that runs rings around EndNote because it cuts down on data entry to the n’th degree and has an online backup system. If you haven’t checked it out, go now! Stop reading this list! Go!
4. Google Scholar: I thought this was a given but I’m continually surprised by how many people don’t use it, and how many lecturers tell their students not to use it! Being able to search effectively, whether that be with Google Scholar or through databases directly, is an important skill in academia. Plus you can see how many people are citing you :). Before there were track-backs there were still citations!
5. Twitter: If you follow celebrities, you’ll find out what they had for lunch. But if you follow people working and researching in your field you’ll find out what has their attention. And it’s likely something you’d like to attend to!
6. Wordle: I find this incredibly useful for visualising my writing in different ways, analysing interviews, looking at over-used and under-used words… it’s on my list not just for Languages teachers
7. Turnitin: I was a bit anti-Turnitin to begin with (how DARE they keep a copy of my work on file!) but as a marker, I really appreciate it. It’s not so much about catching plagiarizers (it’s often oh-so-obvious when it’s not a student’s own work), it’s about building a case against them. Previously I’d have to find the articles/essay/whatever and match it all up manually, building up the evidence that it is indeed more copying than you’d expect in an undergraduate essay. With Turnitin, it’s all there! Brilliant! And it’s a great tool for students (and researchers!) to inspect their own writing and check their paraphrasing.
8. Google Calendar: This calendar has replaced my diary. I don’t know what I’d do without it now. I love how it syncs to almost anything I want it to, that I can share calendars, that I can get automatic alerts for conferences, and that I can colour code everything. It just works!
9. Google Docs: Continuing my ode to Google, Google Docs are fabulous for collaborative work and generating quick surveys
10. A RSS Reader: It doesn’t really matter which one, but a way of managing RSS feeds is essential in academia. Subscribing to RSS feeds of important journals, blogs, and other news sources for the field is essential.
11. PHD Comics: OK, this might count more as a procrastination tool than an ICT tool, but I have absolutely loved following this comic over the course of my studies. It reminds us that we’re not alone in this “journey” and the comic hits so close to home, so often, that I wonder if the author isn’t spying on our office
12. Delicious: One of the best tools for managing bookmarks. Mine’s a bit of a mess at the moment (like many of these things it needs some nurturing and pruning from time to time!) but I have long since given up trying to remember website addresses or keep them bookmarked on my computer. Much easier to be able to access them from Delicious whenever I want, wherever I want! Delicious is also a great place to search for webpages that people have tagged as relevant to a topic/keyword, and not a machine.
13. The Book Depository: Cheap books!! Amazon may still be cheaper for some academic texts, but Book Depository with its free shipping is catching up!
14. LibX Toolbar: Oh how much easier this makes searching the Murdoch Library Catalogue! You can read more about why a LibX toolbar is so useful it in a recent blog post by Kathryn Greenhill. She’s much more eloquent than I in waxing lyrical.
15. Slideshare.net: A great place to publish slides so that they’re embeddable in other media (e.g. blog, wiki, etc) and also to find presentations to inform, adapt, or model on. Check out Death by PowerPoint for an absolute must-view.
16. Search @ CreativeCommons: For making all of those presentations! Copyright free / Creative Commons images are the way to go, and this helps you find them. And then record where you got them from using Zotero! (Thanks Kathryn for that tip!!)
17. The FireFox Browser: There’s just so much more you can do with FireFox than you can with other browsers. I regularly use extensions such as “Scrapbook” to archive websites, “FireFTP” to quickly transfer files, “Firebug” to find sneaky pieces of web code, and of course helpers such as LibX, Delicious, and Zotero.
18. Scrivener: I’ve only just begun using this but I like it so far! It seems to ‘organise’ writing the way that I like to work. We’ll see how it goes!
19. Skitch: A mac app for assisting with screen capture. I use this a lot to create instructions for students, to take quick snapshots of pages (or parts of pages), keep Twitter messages safe, and so on. Also a great tool when constructing PowerPoint presentations.
20. A program for annotating .pdf’s: Adobe Professional ($$$) and Preview (on Mac) both make annotating .pdfs easy. I mark student assignments using Preview by inserting comments and scribbling (literally) over their work. I find it far easier and more flexible (especially with the scribbles!) than using “track changes” in Word.
21. CoverItLive: A great tool for ‘covering’ a conference by bringing in a range of feeds and peoples to a web audience. It can be quite intensive to use (I end up focusing so much on what is really a transcription exercise that I don’t listen/engage in the same way I normally would or make my own notes and meta-notes) but it is one of my favourite tools for relaying conference presentations due to its ease of use. Plus you can always go back and re-visit what was said! Check out my EuroCALL Conference posts to see it in re-action
22. Freemind: An open-source mind-mapping tool. There’s other ones around, but this one is free, easy to use, and offers a range of formats.
23. QuickTime: I do a lot of video editing in my research work and the new version of QuickTime with its “trim” functionality has dramatically reduced the number of steps and time it takes to edit clips!

So there you have it. My favourite web/computer-based Things. Of course, I use a lot more than this (I hardly mentioned productivity/presentation tools like Word, PowerPoint, iMovie, etc.) but in a 23 Things programme, I think these would make the list.

What would you add or replace?