Zaid Ali Alsagoff offers a very complete list of free learning tools for professional development:

A Free Learning Tool for Every Learning Problem?

Let’s explore the idea that there is at least one excellent free learning tool for every learning problem (or issue)!

I want a FREE:

  1. Easy-to-use and secure Internet browser? Firefox
  2. e-Mail system? Gmail
  3. Social bookmarking tool? del.icio.us
  4. Online RSS reader? Google Reader
  5. Online Calendar? Google Calendar
  6. Learning Management System (LMS)? Easy, Moodle
  7. Hosted LMS? Here are SEVEN!
  8. Learning Activity Management System? LAMS
  9. Collaboration tool? Connect with Ning
  10. Social Networking tool? Tricky one! Facebook
  11. Content authoring tool? How about two? eXe & CourseLab
  12. Screencasting (recording) tool? Wink
  13. Hosted screencasting tool? Jing
  14. Audio recording tool? Audacity
  15. Tool to host my audio recordings? Odeo
  16. Virtual Classroom? DimDim
  17. Hosted Virtual Classroom? WiZiQ
  18. Videoconferencing chat service? Vawkr
  19. Tool to make calls from my computer? Skype
  20. Online Quiz tool? ClassMarker
  21. Online polling tool with a bit of fizzle? Polldaddy
  22. Online survey tool? Click here to choose!
  23. Tool to broadcast myself to the world? USTREAM
  24. Online suite of office tools? Google Docs
  25. Wiki tool? PBwiki
  26. Blogging tool? WordPress! Why aren’t you using WordPress? Good Question!
  27. Microblogging tool? Twitter
  28. Tool to share my slides? Too easy man! SlideShare
  29. Tool to share my videos? Come on! YouTube
  30. Tool to download videos from any video sharing site (YouTube, Metacafe, etc.)? ClipNabber
  31. Tool to share my pictures? Are you joking! Flickr
  32. Tool to create flowcharts, diagrams, technical drawings? Gliffy
  33. Tool to create cool personalized images? Custom Sign Generator Widgets
  34. Tool to create comics and cartoons? ToonDoo
  35. Image Resizer? Dosize
  36. Metasearch engine with visual display interfaces? What! Here is KartOO!
  37. Watermarking tool? uMark
  38. Screen Color Picker? ColorSchemer
  39. Tool to make screenshots from different browsers with one click? Browsershots
  40. File hosting solution that allows me to share files up to 250MB each? FileCrunch
  41. Online visual dictionary and thesaurus? Visuwords
  42. Mindmapping tool?FreeMind
  43. Interactive 3D business simulator? INNOV8
  44. Tool to create Flash games (templates)? ClassTools.net
  45. Self-publishing tool (books, papers, articles, etc)? Scribd
  46. Tool to improve my typing skills? Peter’s Online Typing Course
  47. Gaming tool to help me learn ICT? ReviseICT.co.uk
  48. Tool to highlight text in a webpage? The Awesome Highlighter
  49. Tool to aggregate all my resources, mail, RSS feeds, etc, in one place? iGoogle
  50. Site to make you shut up? About time! Here we go:

25 (must-have free) Tools: Professional Development Programme (Jane Knight)

In short, for every learning problem (or issue) we have today, there is probably a free tool out there that enables us to solve it. If not, I am pretty sure some genius out there is constructing it right now. If no one is doing it, perhaps we can do it.
Another challenge is to integrate all our learning tools efficiently and effectively into our learning spaces. On the positive note, more and more tools are creating integration modules to widely used systems like Moodle and Facebook, so it might not be so difficult after all. Also, with OpenID we can increasingly login to all our favorite websites without much hassle. Single-login to all our learning tools! Now that is something we all can appreciate! Remember one password! Tough one!

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