Open Online Experience

Mentor and participant picks from the OOE13 year

Web Tool Box

A curated collection of web tools and resources that mentors and participants used across the Open Online Experience program. Each entry pairs a short note on how a tool was used with a link to a help page for that tool.

Browse the learning topics

Tools highlighted in the toolbox

Social media and community

Connectivist learning depends on sharing and conversation, so the toolbox is anchored in the platforms the community used to connect.

  • Twitter with #ooe13 — the hashtag participants used to follow discussions and mentor conversations.
  • Diigo groups — a social bookmarking group for saving and discussing links on the learning topics.
  • Google+ communities — the Open Online Experience community space for longer-form sharing.

Reading and curation

For the content curation and digital literacy topics, participants worked with tools for collecting, reading, and organising resources.

  • Content curation tools — used in Topic 5, Content Curation (February 2014).
  • Read-later and bookmarking tools — for saving sources to revisit later in the year.

Storytelling and multimedia

Topic 6, Student Directed Learning: Digital Storytelling — Multimedia, Remixes & Mashups (March 2014), invited participants to try tools for remixing and mashing up media.

  • Multimedia and remix tools — for combining media in student-directed projects.
  • Blogging platforms — where many participants published their reflections throughout the year.

How the toolbox was used

Mentor recommendations

Mentors added the tools they had tested in their own classrooms, together with short help pages explaining the basics of each one. The lists grew month by month alongside the learning topics.

Help pages for specific tools

Every tool listed had an accompanying help page, so participants who were trying something new could read a plain-language overview before they started. Basic technical support questions were handled through the FAQ pages.

The Open Online Experience brought together educators who were exploring how digital tools and online practices could reshape teaching and learning. Rather than a polished conference showcase, the program grew out of a community conversation in which participants shared resources, asked questions, and documented what worked in their own classrooms. That spirit of openness shaped everything from the session format to the web tool box that grew alongside the year, a curated collection of platforms that mentors and participants actually used in practice.

Social media and community sit at the center of the toolbox, because connectivist learning depends on sharing and conversation more than on lectures. Twitter with the event hashtag became the place where participants followed discussions, replied to mentors, and opened conversations that continued well past scheduled sessions. Each entry in the collection pairs a short note on how a tool was used with a link to a help page, so that newcomers could quickly see not only what a platform offers but why it mattered to people teaching with it.

Entries are organized by learning topic, so the toolbox doubles as a map of the themes the community cared about: open educational resources, curation and remixing, digital and media literacy, connected learning, online community and citizenship, and the practical craft of integrating technology into existing lessons. Video, blogs, chat, synchronous sessions, blogs and micro-blogging, and social bookmarking all appear as pieces of a shared workflow rather than isolated products. Thin divider rules and generous spacing between entries keep the pages readable despite the density of material.

The wider goal of the program was time and space for educators to think aloud about curation, context, and safe, responsible online participation, and to leave with lessons they could carry into their own settings. The tool box preserves that intention: it is a record of what participants tried, what helped, and what they wished they had known earlier. Because the resources were gathered from a community rather than from a vendor, the collection remains open to extension, and future cohorts can continue adding the tools and examples that prove most useful in real classroom practice.

Keep exploring

Participant posts and reflections about the tools are collected in the blog archives, and the monthly topics show where each tool was first introduced.