My Top Digital Tools for Learning 2022

One of my 2022 top tools for learning: an illustration made by MidjourneySince 2007, Jane Hart has compiled an annual Top Digital Tools for Learning List from the results of public surveys. Looking at the trends over time provides a useful overview of the tools that people are using to learn. In addition, her lists and annual analyses allow readers to discover new useful tools. Here’s my contribution: my ten top digital tools for learning in 2022, with brief descriptions of why and how I use them, plus some additional tools I’d sorely miss and a promising newcomer.

1. TweetDeck

Although the glory days of Twitter have passed, it still remains my best source of breaking news and interesting content from interesting people. It’s also the social media platform where I have the most visibility, with 1,000 – 10,000 tweet impressions per day.

And the tool I use to tweet and read is the web app TweetDeck. It’s a set of customizable columns that I’ve set up to show the tweets of a private list of accounts I follow, mentions, notifications, direct messages, and several customized search results for my various Twitter accounts. I love how easy it is to create temporary custom columns on the fly and tweet (immediately or scheduled) with automatic URL shortening.

Here’s a screenshot of five of the columns’ contents while I was writing this:

TweetDeck top tools for learningWhile there are plenty of ways to work with Twitter, TweetDeck is my favorite.

2. Feedly

I use the RSS web feed reader Feedly to stay informed about new posts on many different websites that interest me. Feedly lets me know about new content, so I don’t have to check the sites to see if anything has changed. I use it on a web browser and the IOS app.

3. WordPress

For the last 16 years I’ve posted one, occasionally two, blog posts per week on the privately hosted WordPress website you’re reading now. Sharing my thoughts by writing about interesting things is probably the best way I learn.

Interacting with my readers on the 700+ posts via 1,800+ comments to date, plus our online conversations on Twitter and LinkedIn is a great way to build connections and explore content deeper. WordPress plugins allow me to sell my books and workshops on the site. No question, WordPress is an invaluable tool for learning, sharing, and controlling your content.

4. Zoom

Over the last couple of years, Zoom has become the standard way, at least in the circles I travel, to connect with others online in real-time. It’s rock solid and has the core functionality I need to chat with a group or lead an online workshop. And just about everyone who goes online knows how to use it.

5. Evernote

I am interested in so much, and can’t remember more than a tiny fraction of what I read and see anymore. When I read an interesting article about meeting design, facilitation, a technical hack, or a tasty-looking recipe, I know that I’m not going to remember how to find it again in a week, month or year. So I capture it in Evernote. When I want to make chimichurri sauce again or remind myself about the myth of learning styles, it’s easy to retrieve that saved URL, set of client meeting notes, diagram, or memorable quote with a few keystrokes.

6. YouTube

Whether it’s a Sparks performance of How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall a track I fell in love with watching the end of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an instructional video on how to fix my dishwasher, or a clear explanation of how an N95 mask actually works, YouTube delivers!

7. Preview

Sometimes, humble operating systems contain little gems. In my opinion, Apple’s Preview is one of them. I like to illustrate my blog posts with pictures, and Preview is the core tool I use to manipulate and convert images. Yes, I use other tools, but Preview will do most of what I need.

8. Google Chrome

The web browser. Can’t do much with the internet without it. I have both Chrome and Safari open all the time on my desktop Macintoshes, but I use Chrome more.

9. Merlin

Merlin, what’s that you wonder? It’s the latest addition to my learning tools. I live in the countryside and am surrounded by birds. Yet despite years of trying to visually identify them I am simply incapable of remembering birds from one week to the next. The Merlin app has a visual guide to identify birds, but I don’t use it. Rather, I use its wonderful Sound ID, which listens to the birds around you and shows real-time suggestions for what’s singing.

Merlin top tools for learning

I love using a different learning modality in place of an old one that hasn’t been very effective for me.

10. Dropbox

For a long time, I’ve needed to live in a world where my digital data is available to me anywhere and anytime. Where it’s protected from device loss or damage or hacking (I hope). I keep cloud and onsite backups of my desktop computers via a separate service, but Dropbox is the digital tool I use to store and access my critical data at any place and time.

Runners-up…

Here are four more digital tools that I frequently use.

  1. Besides Keynote‘s core use as excellent presentation software, it’s a wonderful tool for creating simple graphics. When Preview isn’t enough, Keynote usually has the added functionality I need.
  2. Sometimes Evernote is overkill; it’s a big slow-loading app. I use Apple Notes to quickly store and retrieve common information that I can’t load permanently into my brain.
  3. When I walk in the woods surrounding my home I often see flora I don’t recognize. (After 40 years living here, I’ve learned the fauna pretty well!) The Seek app is great for visually identifying plants.
  4. A very recent addition to my toolkit is Midjourney, which I’ve started to use to create illustrations for my blog posts (including this one).

…and a promising newcomer

I’ve occasionally used Slack over the past few years for event planning and real-time production. Midjourney (see above) is integrated into Discord, which I’ve started to enjoy using for group synchronous and asynchronous chats. Time will tell if this becomes one of my top tools for learning.

Digital tools aren’t always the right choice for events

Sometimes, the right choice for events is analog tools, as shown in this photograph of conference attendees posting and reviewing topics for sessions written on sticky notes.

Digital tools aren’t always the right choice for events. Every day I receive a barrage of pitches for event technologies. Each one markets digital tools, like apps for marketing, registration, venue booking, staffing, sponsorship, engagement, etc. Newcomers to the meeting industry who experience this onslaught could be forgiven for believing that digital software and hardware technologies are the only tools available and worth considering for meeting improvement.

Well…no.

The reason that digital tool marketing fills event professionals’ mailboxes and feeds is simply that there’s money to make by selling these technologies. Much more money than from tools like the participation techniques covered in my book The Power of Participation, which require either no “technology” at all or inexpensive tools like paper, Sharpies®, and Post-it® notes.

Yes, digital event technology has had a big positive impact on events. For example, no one (except the companies that printed them) regrets the demise of the massive printed conference guides that attendees had to drag around, most attendees appreciate the quantity and timeliness of information available on their mobile devices from well-designed event apps, and voting apps and throwable microphones allow greater interaction between presenters and audiences.

Nevertheless, in my experience, the human process tools I’ve been using and improving for the last twenty-five years provide more benefits (and, obviously, at lower cost) than current digital tools.

Let me illustrate with a current story taken from one of my earlier careers.

A massive difference

Before accidentally entering the meeting industry, I spent twenty-three years as an independent information technology consultant. During this period I was an active member of the global software development community. My friends included some of the leading practitioners of this challenging art.
Large software projects involve teams of programmers who work together to develop complex systems where a single error can have far-reaching consequences. Everyone makes mistakes, and one of the hardest tasks when developing software in teams is to implement a design process that provides the required system functionality while minimizing flaws. Because the system implementation is constantly changing during development, continual software testing is an essential component of the whole process.

As you might expect, software developers are leading-edge creators of software tools. Developers routinely use and constantly improve sophisticated code repositories, automated testing suites, and complex project management tools.

And yet, it turns out, some of the most important tools are not digital. Here’s an illustrative tweet from Mathew Cropper, an Irish software developer, and a follow-up response from Canadian consultant Dave Sabine.

“Last week we moved from a purely digital backlog to using a physical wall. The quality of conversation improved massively. It’s like talking with a different group of people.”
Mathew Cropper tweet

“If a team hasn’t yet tried a big, visible, physical wall of roadmaps/backlog/tasks… then any discussion about digital tools is like buying new tennis shoes in order to quit smoking.”
David Sabine tweet

The most sophisticated digital tools that money can buy are no match for a wall full of sticky notes!

Successful process for software development and meetings

There are many reasons why a wall of sticky notes is a useful and powerful tool for successful team software development and effective conference program crowdsourcing and engagement. Both human process environments thrive because a sticky note wall provides:

  • One place to easily capture every piece of information that any individual thinks is relevant;
  • A public display of information that many people can easily view simultaneously for as long as needed;
  • Simple public manipulation options, such as note clustering, inclusion/exclusion, ranking, and public modification;
  • Somewhere for appropriate people to document and discuss progress, and develop and implement process; and
  • A natural focus for easy spontaneous conversation, communication, and creativity.

It’s hard for current digital tools to provide any of these benefits as simply and well. Let’s compare for each of the points above:

  • Information capture: Wall capture requires writing with pens on sticky notes. Digital tools require access to a digital device for each attendee plus the interface knowledge necessary to use it.
  • Public display: Wall requires a flat surface for notes. Digital tools require a BIG (expensive) screen.
  • Public manipulation options: At the wall simply pick up a note and move it. Digital tools would require a big touch screen plus some form of note-dragging interface. [aka Minority Report wizardry]
  • Documenting and discussing progress & implementing process: Wall layout can easily be repurposed/redesigned whenever needed to accommodate different process tools such as project management or ranking to-dos. Digital tools typically require specific process techniques to be precoded.
  • Focus for conversation, communication, and creativity: Walls provide all the above functionality simply and in ways accessible to any attendee. So they are natural foci for conversation, experimentation, and creativity. The barriers listed above for digital tools make them far less accessible for such purposes.

Given these significant advantages, coupled with much lower costs, it’s a shame that more conference organizers haven’t discovered the value of simple process tools like sticky note walls and are still seduced by the relentless marketing of digital tool suppliers. So to discover many other powerful human process tools, see why they can be the right choice for events, and learn how to use them effectively, buy my “tool chest” book The Power of Participation: Creating Conferences That Deliver Learning, Connection, Engagement, and Action.