By Michail Filioglou (EDRASE)
Since 2007, Jane Hart has been compiling an annual Top Tools for Learning List, retrieved from the results of an open survey. These Top Tools lists now include an important and interesting time study not only on the popularity of learning tools, but also on learning behavior itself.
On the 1st of September 2021, we had the publication of the results of the 15th Annual Survey .
The main conclusion from the analysis of this list is that 2021 was the year of Disruption! There were a considerable number of new tools nominated this year. That’s why, the main list has now been extended to 300 tools to accommodate them. Subsequently, each of the 3 sub-lists has been increased to 150 tools. The table presented in the shows the overall rankings as well as the rankings on the 3 sub-lists: Top 150 Tools for Personal Learning (PL150), the Top 150 Tools for Workplace Learning (WL150) and the Top 150 Tools for Education (ED150).
Here is the list of the top 20 learning tools but you can find the complete to 300 list HERE.
Some of the conclusions drawn from this survey are:
1 – Video meeting tools like Zoom (at #2) and Teams (at #4) have maintained their places in the top 5. They are now seen as indispensable for both meetings and live training. They have been joined on the list this year by a number of other platforms that support virtual meetings as well as other virtual and hybrid events, like Wonder (at #197), VooV Meeting (at #241), and airmeet (at #230), etc.
2 – Live engagement tools like Kahoot (at #18) and Mentimeter (at #29) have moved up a few places These tools are being used to provide interactive functionality to meeting tools.
3 – Online whiteboard tools have also become very popular for the same reason – ie to provide collaborative functionality during live meetings. Miro (up 45 places to #30) is now leading the way in the corporate space together with Mural (up 31 places to #35) whilst Google Jamboard (up 33 places to #69) is now more popular in education.
4 – Whilst team and enterprise collaboration platforms also remain popular for remote working a number of other workflow/ project/ team management platforms have joined the list this year (like Breeze (at #124), Jira (at #129) and Monday.com (at #152). These platforms are aimed at increasing team collaboration and productivity in the workplace
5 – Additionally, a number of new, dedicated virtual training and workshop platforms appear on the list this year, ie Bramble (at #143) and Butter (at #163)