This post was inspired by a recent post by Stephen Downes where he shared his own tools for learning. I know how much I enjoy reading about what other people use so I thought I’d do something similar in the hope that this post is interesting or useful for someone else. And besides, it was really fun to put together.
Here we go.
Firefox (web browser)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
I never used to think of my browser as a learning tool but when you consider that this is what almost everything I do moves through, it should definitely be on the list. I use Firefox over Chrome (or any Chrome-based browser) because I value the principles driving the team making the browser. Why not use Vivaldi or Brave? Because those browsers are based on the open-source Chromium project…owned by Google. This means that any improvements made to the rendering engine by Vivaldi and Chromium are passed upstream to Chromium, thereby also improving Google’s Chrome browser which makes it that much harder to develop for anything else. It also means that any changes Google makes to the Chromium project affect all browsers based on that architecture. So, for example, when Google removed the sync functionality from Chromium, it means that Vivaldi, Brave, etc. will also lose the feature. I’m not happy when an advertising company has so much control over the tools I’m using. So I choose Firefox.
These are my essential browser extensions (they all run in different browsers as well):
- Bitwarden: Password manager
- Joplin: Save to Joplin
- Zotero: Save to Zotero
- Tabliss: Customisable new tab page (see also Momentum)
- Snooze tab: What it says…snoozes a tab for an arbitrary period
Alternative web browsers:
- Vivaldi (https://vivaldi.com/): If I wasn’t using Firefox I’d be using Vivaldi. This is a super-powerful browser; Sometimes I fire it up for the Tab Tiling feature alone. But it’s built with Chromium.
- Brave (https://brave.com/): Privacy focused (more than almost everything else), beautiful to use, interesting approaches to dealing with . Also runs on Chromium. Sigh.
- Opera (https://www.opera.com/): Opera is a really fast alternative that I used for a few years while waiting for Mozilla to sort out the speed issues with Firefox. Chromium. Again.
Apparently Google, Apple, and Microsoft also make browsers but I don’t recommend them.
Obsidian (knowledge database?)
I’m not even sure that Obsidian existed two years ago but today it’s probably the tool I use most after the browser. I’m not going to go into the knowledge management side of the project (that’s for a series of posts I’m planning). Obsidian is a note-taking application that has loads of great features, keeps all your notes in markdown (a richer version of plain text), and is a pure delight to work in. It’s not unreasonable to say that I love it. I’m planning a series of videos that goes into a lot of detail around how I use Obsidian in my work.
Alternatives:
- Roam Research (https://roamresearch.com/): Very expensive app that does the same thing as Obsidian, except it uses a database, which makes it hard to work with your notes in anything other than Roam. Apparently some people love it.
- FOAM (https://foambubble.github.io/foam/): Open source version of Roam Research that’s had some teething problems since launching less than a year ago. But if they can work these out in the long-term, I’d definitely consider switching to FOAM.
- Notion (https://www.notion.so/): If I wasn’t using Obsidian, or holding out for FOAM, I’d probably be using Notion. It’s not open source and is database driven, so it’d be a hard choice to make. But I think this would help me get my work done even while I worry that they’ll make it hard to get my information out of the service. This is definitely not future-proof in the way that Obsidian is.
- Polar (https://getpolarized.io/): The free version seems reasonable, it has a nice visual interface, and what looks like cool features. This would also be on my radar as an Obsidian alternative but the limitations in the free version might be too onerous in the long-term.
Zotero (resource management)
A few years ago I’m not sure that Zotero would have made this list. My use case was that it was the place I’d store PDFs and I’d only open it when I was working on an article or project proposal and even then it was only to find the PDF. About 6 months ago I starting using Zotero as a bookmark manager as well. And it’s been transformative for my working and learning. I use it to save every type of digital resource that I might be interested in referring back to, and the note-taking, tagging, and ability to relate items to each other make it a very powerful tool for connecting ideas. It’s not great for actually working with the notes you take but it does a brilliant job of keeping all your learning and writing resources in one place.
Alternatives:
- Mendeley (https://www.mendeley.com): Elsevier bought Mendeley and have so far forced local encryption of the data, and they’ve just announced that they’re killing off the mobile app.
- Papers (https://www.papersapp.com/): Reference management for Mac that, in my opinion, is quite expensive considering that it doesn’t do anything that you can’t get for free with Zotero.
- EndNote (https://endnote.com/): Possibly the most well-known reference manager, Endnote is expensive but often available through institutional licenses. I’ve never used it.
Pocket (read-it-later service)
Pocket is another absolute delight of an application; I love reading in Pocket. And back in the good old days when I used to drive to work I used the text-to-speech feature all the time to have my saved articles read to me. Pocket is also owned by Mozilla (who make Firefox) so there’s a bit more trust built into my use of it purely because of that relationship. The service is also built into the browser, although there are extensions for all major browsers). I’m at a point where, if I can’t read something in Pocket, I’m probably not going to read it at all. There is a highlighting feature that I’ve tried to use but because you can’t easily get those highlights out of Pocket, it’s utility for taking notes is limited (IMO).
Alternatives:
- Instapaper (https://www.instapaper.com/): Almost a drop-in replacement for Pocket that works well. Not as pretty as Pocket but it does the job.
- Raindrop (https://raindrop.io/): Raindrop is less a read-it-later service than a bookmarking service. However, the mobile app and web experience are really beautiful and if you’re online all the time then a bookmark is essentially the same thing. There is no offline option though.
- Evernote (https://evernote.com/): I believe that some people use Evernote as a read-it-later service. I’ve tried this approach with other note-taking apps and I’ve never enjoyed the experience.
Pocketcasts (podcasts)
As Pocket is to my reading, Pocketcasts is to my listening. I love this app. I used to spend about 10 hours a week listening to podcasts back when I had a commute but since the pandemic I’ve found it difficult to devote as much time to listening as I would like. One of my favourite features is the ability to increase the speed that I listen to episodes. Most of my listening is at 1.8x normal speed, although more technical episodes are at 1.5x (I never listen to anything at normal speed). The only feature that Pocketcasts doesn’t have – that I would pay for – is audio bookmarking. This is a problem with almost all podcast clients (barring Airr, which is only on iOS right now). One of my biggest challenges with podcasts is getting useful information out of them. Almost all of the podcasts I listen to are related to areas of research or learning that I’m interested in, so being able to bookmark segments of audio would be brilliant. If that audio could then automatically be transcribed and emailed to me, I would pay quite a bit for that feature.
Alternatives:
- Google podcasts (https://podcasts.google.com/): Google’s podcast service is not so much a client as it is a very lightweight search and presentation layer. It’s been getting better over the past couple of years and might be worth looking into.
- Airr (https://www.airr.io/): Included here because of the audio bookmarking feature, which is a game changer. I’d consider swapping to Airr from Pocketcasts if it ran on Android.
- Player.FM (https://player.fm/): A really solid podcast client that I used for about a year. The UI is good but the assumption that everyone is connected all the time just wasn’t true for me and the workaround in the app is clunky.
Hypothes.is (annotation)
Hypothes.is is a social annotation service that allows you to highlight and annotate the web, as well as local files like PDFs. Like Pocket, Hypothes.is is elegant, works incredibly well, and is an absolute delight to use. I’m less interested in the social aspect of annotation than in my ability to engage with the text through extending, connecting, and questioning arguments the author puts forward. I think there’s enormous value in the social component but I’ve found that pages almost always have no annotations, or are overrun with them. I’ve tried using this with my students, with varying levels of success. There are a few problems I have with Hypothes.is though, the most important of which is that there’s no easy way to get the data out of the system. I want my data to stay associated with the online source as well as be available locally for me to work with. And Hypothes.is currently has no way to work with data locally.
Alternatives:
- Diigo (https://www.diigo.com/): I used Diigo for many years and really enjoyed it. Then I stopped annotating online (I don’t remember why) and when I started again, Hypothes.is was available and I just went with that.
- Memex (https://getmemex.com/): Open source online annotation and highlighting. Seems to have similar features to Hypothes.is but also has a desktop app. But the free plan doesn’t include sync between desktop and mobile apps. I’ll almost certainly experiment with this a bit, especially if it resolves the “no local data” problem I have with Hypothes.is.
- Weava (https://www.weavatools.com/): I’ve never used Weava but the free plan seems reasonable for testing. However, I’m pretty sure that I’d need a paid plan to make this really useful, which means I’ll probably never use it.
Joplin (note-taking)
Joplin is an open source note-taking application. “Wait, you have two note-taking apps?” Yes. It’s complicated. Joplin is a like a drop-in Evernote replacement so if you’ve ever used Evernote then Joplin is very similar. I use it to capture temporary notes e.g. links, ideas, images, and excerpts that I want to spend more time thinking about, but just not now. It’s cross-platform, relatively lightweight, and looks good (I like using things that are visually pleasing). Joplin makes it very easy to export everything out of the app in a format (markdown) that any other app can use. Being able to export whatever I’ve created out of an app in an open format has become the first question I ask when evaluating a new tool. I can’t commit to investing time and energy into creating something with a tool, that I’ll only ever be able to use with that tool.
Alternatives:
- Evernote (evernote.com/): Powerful note-taking app that I’d probably still be using if they hadn’t changed their terms of service.
- Keep (https://keep.google.com): Google note-taking app. Does what it says on the box. If you’re tightly integrated into the Google ecosystem then this probably makes sense to choose.
- OneNote (https://www.onenote.com/): Microsoft’s default note-taking app. I tried using it for a while but for some reason didn’t enjoy the experience. It’s a perfectly competent app that runs on all devices and works very well.
Visual studio code (text editor for writing, not note-taking)
https://code.visualstudio.com/
A few years ago I switched to using markdown (plain text that can be rendered as HTML, or exported to other formats e.g. PDF, Word, etc.) for the bulk of my initial writing. These would be the early drafts of pieces that will eventually become something else, like an article, blog post (this was written entirely in VS Code), and even presentations. The benefits include the fact that they’re lightweight and have few options. They mostly just get out of the way so that you can write. I’ve used a lot of markdown editors over the years (see the list below), but lately I’ve been using Visual Studio Code as my go-to text editor. And I’ve really been enjoying it. I can’t put my finger on why.
Alternatives These are difficult to suggest because VS Code is actually a code editor that I’m using as a text editor and there are thousands of text editors. You also don’t need a code editor as your text editor ):
- Typora (https://typora.io/): This is a really elegant writing app. Even if you don’t care about markdown it’s just a lovely writing experience. I used Typora for years before switching to VS Code, not because there was anything wrong with Typora…I just wanted to try something new.
- Zettlr (https://www.zettlr.com/): Very different approach to a writing app that, in some respects, is even better than Typora (e.g. it’s open source and incorporates powerful writing features that would probably suit academics more than Typora would). I experimented with Zettlr for a while before settling on VS Code. I still install and try Zettlr every now and again.
- Mark Text (https://marktext.app/): Mark Text is a free and open source markdown editor that can work very well as a writing app. I’ve never used it (I never knew about it) but if I switch from VS Code it might be to something like Mark Text.
Inoreader (RSS reader)
Inoreader is an RSS reader that I use to aggregate information from blogs written by people I find inspiring. I also use this as my news feed because RSS doesn’t filter by algorithm; it presents every post published to that feed in chronological order. I don’t need Twitter or Facebook deciding what’s going to interest me (or more accurately, what will keep me on their site for longer). RSS is one of those things – like email – that just works. It’s so effective that you don’t even know it’s there. I subscribe to loads of blogs (news, science, technology, education, and politics are the main topics I tend to follow…no lifestyle, sport, or finance for me).
Alternatives (again, there are thousands of these things, so it’s hard to suggest alternatives):
- Feedly (https://feedly.com/): I used Feedly for years and only moved when I learned that Inoreader offers much more in the free version.
- The Old Reader (https://theoldreader.com/): A full-featured RSS reader that runs on all platforms.
- Reeder (https://reederapp.com/): Mac-only alternative to Feedly that is apparently very good. If nothing else it looks elegant.
DuckDuckGo (search engine)
As with the browser, I never thought of a search engine as a learning tool but this is almost always my starting point when looking for resources. Which means that it influences what I’m learning because it determines the entry point into all lines of inquiry that I start. I’ve been using DuckDuckGo almost exclusively as my default search engine for more than 2 years now and I can’t say that it’s negatively affected my searches. If anything, when I compare things like image search I’m increasingly convinced that DuckDuckGo provides a more useful experience than Google Image Search. Regardless, it’s very rare that I can’t find what I need with DuckDuckGo.
Alternatives:
- Bing (https://www.bing.com/): Microsoft’s search engine, which I believe is very good.
- StartPage (https://www.startpage.com/uk/?#hmb): I believe this uses the same search engine as Google but doesn’t track your activity. I used this for a while and was pretty happy with it.
- Ecosia (https://www.ecosia.org/?c=en): They make money and use it to plant trees.
Gmail (email)
Do you think of your email client as a learning tool? Probably not. I know I never did. And yet this is arguably where my most frequent interaction with my peers takes place. Granted, a lot of this interation is operational (i.e. it relates to the day-to-day running of our department and faculty) but a significant amount of it is interaction with research collaborators, postgraduate and undergraduate students, mentees, and . And even some of the operational interaction (e.g. setting up meetings) is in service of a learning objective. For these reasons I think it’s useful to think of email as a tool for learning, and related to that, how I can make more effective use of this tool as part of that larger system.
Alternatives:
- Protonmail (https://protonmail.com/): The free version probably isn’t enough for most people’s needs but it’s definitely enough to get a sense of how well the service works.
- Hey (https://hey.com/): I tried using Hey for about 8 months (I paid for year-long subscription) but it just didn’t fit well into my workflow. It may be that 20 years of using Gmail had trained me to think in a certain way, which wasn’t conducive to an alternative approach. Or it may be that Hey in its current implementation just wasn’t refined enough (it’s a brand new product) to be adaptable to my needs. I think that they’re trying to do something new with email, which is awesome. It’s just not quite
- Outlook (https://outlook.live.com/owa/): Email from Microsoft. Not sure what else to say, really.
Conclusion
You may not have noticed (I know that I initially didn’t) that every tool on the list above can be swapped out for an alternative in a couple of minutes. This has become increasingly important to me over the past few years as I invest more and more time into my own practice. I don’t want my personal learning to be impacted when a company changes their Terms of Service, so I’m looking for options that give me as many degrees of freedom as possible.
A few years ago this list would’ve included Twitter, Slideshare, ResearchGate, and LinkedIn. I now visit Twitter maybe once a day, LinkedIn once a week, and ResearchGate once a month. I haven’t visited Slideshare in years. This is probably another big difference in my approach to learning in that it’s become more personal and less social. I’m not sure why this happened but I can say that I realised that I was spending more time curating an online presence than I was engaged in the deeper reflection that leads to more meaningful insights. I still use social platforms but it’s more for serendipitous discovery and light-touch connection, than for any strategic approach to learning.