Symbaloo

What is Symbaloo, and why should you use it?

Symbaloo is a free social bookmarking tool. A fun and simple way to organize and store all your digital resources in the cloud. Symbaloo allows you to easily navigate the web and access your bookmarks from anywhere with any device. Symbaloo is a free educational tool, SymbalooEDU Premium is a resource management system that offer classrooms, schools, and districts a customized SymbalooEDU page with a dedicated URL to distribute and manage all digital resources in one place. Symbaloo helps teachers curate content and share the best of the web with their students. Most teachers own a massive collection of teaching resources: classroom links, lesson plans, web 2.0 tools, educational apps, educational videos, social media, professional development resources, and many more. Symbaloo lets you organize and stay on top of all these resources. Symbaloo allows teachers to share valuable resources with their students and with each other. The best part is, Symbaloo is easy to use. You can add any link you find on the web to a customized tile, and organize your tiles in different webmixes (categories). You can search for tiles in the Symbaloo’s tile database, and you can search for content curated by other educators in Symbaloo’s gallery.

How can you get started?

The steps to get started with Symbaloo are given below:

1. Sign up at Symbaloo website.

2. Fill in your detail to create your account.

3. You will be sent an e-mail to verify your e-mail address.

4. You will be taken to your Symbaloo home page.

5. Start your own webmix by giving it a name.

6. Click on the first tile and a box appears. Fill in all the details.

7. Click on the next tile and keep on adding tiles to create a webmix.

How is Symbaloo Useful in the Classroom?

Teachers can make a Symbaloo webmix and link it to their class website. This way, they can share all their links at one time.

- Some teachers teach two subjects or more. They can organize their lesson plans, resources, and eBooks by creating a webmix for each subject that they teach.

Teachers can also create a personal learning environment for their students. Teachers are preparing students for the global marketplace by

teaching digital citizenship, and teaching students how to navigate and organize resources from a variety of different sources. With Symbaloo, students can customize their own learning space. Students can create their own Symbaloo pages with their most used websites, such as their school email account, personal blog, social networking sites, classroom blog, and school website.

- School media specialists can organize their libraries by using Symbaloo. They can organize destiny and all online resources by creating and sharing webmixes with the students and parents.
- Teachers can create Symbaloo for curriculum mapping. They can use Symbaloo to collaborate with other teachers for curriculum mapping throughout the district. They can create webmixes that include resources that explain each of the standards that the class is covering each month.

Symbaloo can be used to make a digital portfolio for the students. Many teachers stress the importance in showcasing students’ work and creating students’ digital portfolios. Symbaloo is a great place to share all student digital portfolios.
- Symbaloo can also be used to organize all the class videos. There are teachers who have flipped their classrooms and students are instructed to watch videos daily. Teachers create webmix with their videos playlist so their students can watch them without having to open a new link every time. All videos hosted online can be embedded within Symbaloo and will open up within the platform.

Symbaloo Webmix

The webmix shown above is created by me with my 52 favorite webtools for the students and teachers to use. This webmix is divided into six sections: Social media and other collaborative links (red), educational resources (turquoise), educational and fun learning resources for students (blue), technology tools (green), and lesson plan few more resources for teachers (orange). While working on this webmix, I found some of the neatest websites that my students and teachers can use.

Social Media and Collaborative Links:

I organized my favorite social networking links in red tiles. The teachers and students can use these tools easily. The possibilities for social media tools in the classroom are vast. In the hands of the right teacher, they can be used to engage students in creative ways, encourage collaboration and inspire discussion among even soft-spoken students.

Review Games and Flashcards for Teachers and Students:

Under the social media links, I have organized the review games and flashcards related to all core subjects in turquoise color tiles. These resources are very useful for teachers to review the content at the end of a lesson.

Resources for Students:

In the middle, at the top and bottom of the Google Search bar, I have organized the resources for students in blue tiles. The top eight tiles are educational while the bottom eight tiles are game-based learning resources.

Technology Tools:

I have organized my favorite technology tools on the top right corner shown in green tiles. These are awesome tools for teachers, students, or administrators to use as they need.

Resources for Teachers:

I have also added some other resources including lesson planning for teachers to use. Any link is just one click away. I still wanted to add Google Docs, Flickr, Teacher Tube, and many more links.

In conclusion, Symbaloo makes managing bookmarks easier and is accessible across any device – desktop, laptop, Smartphone, and tablet.

References

11 Ways to use Symbaloo in the Classroom. (2014, April 9). Retrieved May 26, 2015, from http://www.theedublogger.com/2014/04/09/11-ways-to-use-symbaloo-in-the-classroom/

Get started with Symbaloo. (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2015, from http://www.slideshare.net/fionabeal/get-started-with-symbaloo

The Landscape of Learning: My Top 52 Webtools for Students: Symbaloo EDU Webmix. (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2015, from http://www.thelandscapeoflearning.com/2012/01/my-top-52-student-webtools-symbaloo-edu.html

The Landscape of Learning: Three Apps to Manage Your 21st Century Toolbox. (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2015, from http://www.thelandscapeoflearning.com/2011/11/how-to-effectively-manage-your-21st.html

What is Symbaloo? (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2015, from http://en.support.symbaloo.com/knowledgebase/articles/224511-what-is-symbaloo

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