Do You Symbaloo?
Need a resource to easily organize and/or share your favorite web tools and sites with students? Then have I got an answer for you!
Say hello to Symbaloo, a curation tool that was created with educators in mind! That’s right! With Symbaloo, teachers can gather all of their online goodies related to topics they teach and compile them in a webmix that can be published and shared with colleagues, students and parents. Even better—students can create their own webmixes. How cool is that?
Having trouble wrapping your mind around this social bookmarking concept? Then check out the Keyboarding webmix I have embedded below—one that is used in my Computers 5 classroom. I love, love the visual aspect this tool provides as well as the easy access students have to a list of typing practice games and activities they can utilize once an assignment/project is complete.
Yeah, the Keyboarding webmix is a bit difficult to see on this blog post, but at least you can get the general idea of what one looks like. For a sample of the “real deal”, check out my Classroom 21—Computers 5 wiki page.
In addition to a web/cloud-based version, Symbaloo is also available for iOS and Android devices. Download the app to see how easy it is to share resources with your classroom—anytime, anywhere!
Lastly, thousands of teachers have already published a wide variety of webmixes to the Symbaloo Gallery so be sure to check out what’s available for use in your own classroom! Why reinvent the wheel, right?
Classroom Connection:
Symbaloo has so many classroom applications that I’m not even sure where to begin! Besides using this “cool tool” as a personal learning environment to visually organize and share the best of the web with students, it can also be utilized in the following ways:
» Sharing appropriate links for assignments, research, additional info related to a topic of study, etc.
» Electronic portfolio for students to showcase knowledge and/or digital projects (stories, movie trailers, presentations, etc.)
» Learning can be extended beyond the classroom
» Teacher homepage providing students (and parents) with one stop access to a classroom web site, info and/or resources
As you can probably tell, I highly recommend the use of Symbaloo in any classroom! Not only does it teach digital literacy skills, but I find the ability to provide students with a pre-constructed dashboard containing the learning tools and spaces needed to reinforce skills is a very effective use of time and technology in conjunction with academic content. In short, Symbaloo offers educators a safe web environment for student learning!