We often labor away using the same tools and techniques we’ve always used. This is one way to get in a rut. It’s helpful to take a break and stop to see if there are better tools that will make our jobs easier, more fun, or provide inspiration.

Here are a few you may not know about. It was difficult to find categories for all of these tools, so they are listed in alphabetical order. Add your favorite little-known tools in the Comments section.

If you’re using Articulate software, this app (unofficially created by an Articulate engineer) makes it easy to test your eLearning on an iPad. Drag your project to Tempshare and it’s saved to a web server, providing a URL to the project that you can access from your iPad. The content is hidden from search engine indexing so it stays private while you test. This is for testing only—content is removed in ten days.

Adapt Learning was created for producing responsive eLearning content. It uses a JavaScript and HTML framework that provides cross-browser compatibility. Courses created in Adapt Learning should display correctly in all supported browsers and devices and they meet DDA accessibility guidelines.

This tool is specifically built to create simulated scenarios with branching. You can use their characters or upload your own images. After a scenario is created, you can add the finished dialogues into popular authoring tools, like Storyline, Captivate and Lectora or send out a link to learners. BranchTrack also has functionality for collaborating and gathering comments.

This is a free add-on to PowerPoint 2013 that provides some interactive functionality. You can record audio, video and screens actions. You can also add inking, polls and quizzes. Then upload to a secure server. There is an analytics dashboard for viewing statistics.

Process Street is an application for creating checklists to share online with a team. Checklists as performance support tools can be more efficient and effective than a course. You can create a checklist, invite team members or assign it and track activities. In addition, you can add videos, documents and graphics to the checklist.

This app provides a collaborative way for reviewers of an eLearning course to give feedback on each slide or page, while viewing a course. Upload a course and as each slide displays, there is a comment box associated with it. The app collects all the relevant comments by slide and displays them in a table for the producer to see. The producer can converse with the reviewer through the app, such as asking for clarifications.

Scorm Cloud allows you to test the SCORM functionality of an eLearning course. You can also deliver courses with SCORM Cloud as they host SCORM compliant courses too.

This is an authoring tool built for branching scenarios that support immersive learning. The visual interface allows users to create the flow that forms the branching structure. This could be used for storyboarding too.

An online storyboarding application that is drag-and-drop easy to use, working exactly as you think it should. Choose a layout and then add a background, characters and text. Storyboard That comes with an extensive library of hundreds of characters and backgrounds, as well as 45,000 images. Leave in the cloud or export in several ways.

This is a collaborative timeline tool you can use for presentations or classroom instruction. Create interactive timelines and stories. Popular with teachers and can probably be adapted for workplace learning.

Help your workforce build a personal learning environment and manage their knowledge. Trailblazer records and maps the journeys a knowledge seeker follows on the web, allowing the person to return to previous websites that he or she may have inadvertently shut down. Not only does this app allow you to view and return to a previous path, you can share it with others.

If you have trouble coming up with names for story characters check out this simple-to-use application that will generate names for you. It has capabilities for generating names from different countries and it’s easy to use.

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