Tool duel - I wanted TPack

One of my big criticism of technology presentations is that they are sometimes a random collection of tools embedded in a dialogue about how technology can change the word but hasn't yet. That has been the case for at least a portion of many of the sessions I went to today. This last session was pretty much there for the whole time. Dean Shareski and Will Richardson (both of whom had sessions I enjoyed earlier) showed a series of tools:

Dean

• Picnic for photoediting - many glog-like features. I have used it and like it.
• Map a list to turn spreadsheets into maps. I haven't played much with this, but really like the idea. I have only used it twice before.
• We emailed Posterous as group. It is an online place that functions as a repository for images, text etc.
• Tube chop allows you to take a video off youtube and keep just a section of a part of it. You get a URL with a part of the video
• Geogreeting sends a message using letters and a map. Dean called it a niche tool - I think it is a non-tool. No thinking here, so I scorned it by not linking it
• Big Huge Labs is for creating things using images. Makes callendars, trading cards, posters etc.

Will

• Evernote - like Onenote, it is a tool where you store notes, links, audio and pics for you to file. Superior to one note because on a variety of platforms like your phone). I like this one.
• Skitch is a screen capture tool that allows you to edit the image and posts it to skitch, flickr or in Evernote. I have used this quite a bit.
• Jing is a screencapture tool that captures what you are looking at on your computer and you can turn it into a movie. Then you can talk and your video camera tapes you and adds it to your video. I use Screenr, but Jing is good.
• Mindmeister is a standard mindmapping tool. It allows you to make a map and collaborate or share it. You pay, though, which is why I don't promote it.
• Instapaper marks something to read later on kindle, paper, computer etc.
• Readability is a good tool for striping out adds. I use the Firefox add-on, so I linked to that

I had used all of these tools before and wished that a bit more time was taken to connect these web 2.0 tools and student outcomes. It is easy to use a variety of tools and still make no impact on students. I think I am a bad audience for this sort of thing because I am not a geek - I don't like technology for the sake of technology. Technology, pedagogy and content knowledge (TPack) must be married.
I stopped blogging for the last several items each of them raised, and they ended on talking about the value of the iPad. Will said you need one just for the racing game. Yawn, I have no need for tech speed. However, it seemed to be invigorating for all the tool men out there :-)