Symbaloo is a wonderful tool! It allows a user to share links to other resources easily and visually. It is quite easy to setup and there are a ton of tutorial resources available.
I have been using Symbaloo in three different ways which I will discuss briefly below.
First, my school district is adopting a 1:1 Chromebook program in our Fifth and Sixth grades. This summer myself and 5 other Technology Integration Specialists have been offering training modules to prepare the teachers. My Module, Workflow, showed how a typical day/lesson could be delivered on Chromebooks. I centered my entire lesson around Symbaloo. The teacher (in this case: Me) had the students (5th & 6th grade teachers) go to a Symbaloo webmix as their launching pad. They went at their own pace to a variety of tiles which took them to different components of my lesson, i.e. a quick check-up, flipped lesson video, google docs, and many more. This provided each ‘student’ a simple and easy way to get to all of my links/resources. Here is my example webmix for that module:
Secondly, my current role in the district is to assist elementary teachers integrating iPads into their classrooms. Apps are constantly coming out and it can be overwhelming to keep up. I had some teachers ask “What resources do I use to find apps?” Great question! I shared with them a webmix which as I find more resources I add them as tiles and push out to them. Their one link can be bookmarked. Over time the webmix will grow and give them a plethora of places to hunt, search, discover, (ins:action verd)…
Finally, I also teach a couple of Grad Courses and one involves Web 2.0 resources. Anyone in education knows that the internet is loaded with Web 2.0 tools. I have one webmix of my favorites shared with the class and encourage each of the students to create their own and add to it over time.
Hopefully this post gave you a little insight into how I use Symbaloo. I encourage you to sign up and then go ahead and get certified, I did & I was spotlighted!
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