Get to know Symbaloo as a bookmarking or curation tool

What is Symbaloo?
Symbaloo is a great free tool you can use to create multiple tables or tiles to organise web links of one sort or another. It thus becomes a visual curation tool or a visual bookmarking tool. Symbaloo can be found at http://www.symbalooedu.com/ if you are a teacher. by joining here you can enrol your students as well.
Symbaloo creates ‘webmixes’ which are basically a collection of your bookmarks. It also has already created tiles of popular websites so that if you want to use those to save time they are there for you.

My webmix
I decided to create a Symbaloo to use as an index page for 30 posts I had created on our SchoolNet blog under the headings of “30 Days of Webtools #1…” etc.

Here is a Slideshare of the process outlining the steps I used.

Get started with Symbaloo from Fiona Beal

Here is my completed Symbaloo
This is my completed Symbaloo. Unfortunately a Symbaloo has to operate from the Symbaloo host page so to get there simply click on the image below.

Uses for Symbaloo in the classroom
1) You can find out what other Symbaloo users are doing and learn from them using the easy Share and Gallery options.

2) You can create a starter page of Intenet sites for your students to use on a project – or your students can create their own.

3) Symbaloo opens its tiles in a new window so that the original always remains as a reference point. It can be used really well with webquests. 

4) As a teacher you can save your favourite tools so that they are always handy for you to use.

5) You can use it like I did as an Index post for a number of blog posts you have created around a topic. 

6) I love the way this teacher uses Symbaloo in his kindergarden class. 
http://mattbgomez.com/just-dance-video-webmix/

7) Listen to this Grade 7 student from the post  http://fishingforedtech.com/2012/03/01/4-ways-to-use-symbalooedu/ showing what she does with Symbaloo

Using Symbaloo

Submitted by Fiona Beal

Recently on this blog we posted a series called '30 days of webtools' with a daily post featuring a different webtool that can be used successfully in the classroom. I thought that an Index post would be fitting for this series for easier navigation to a desired tool; and instead of the usual type of index post I decided to use SymbalooEDU.  This is a very useful curation or bookmarking tool. 

So, if you would like to access the different webtools used in that series just click on the image below and you will be taken to the alphabetically arranged webmix which is hosted at SymbalooEDU. You will be able to click on each block and be taken to the original post. 

There is still quite a lot about Symbaloo that I don't fully understand but in the next blog post I will outline how I went about using it for the webmix below. 

                 30 Days of Webtools index

Click on this image to be taken to the webmix

Why not consider a ‘Mystery Skype’ session with your class this year?

Submitted by Fiona Beal with permission from Brenda Hallowes...
This is a guest post from a Schoolnetter, Brenda Hallowes, who teaches ICT at Cotswold Preparatory School in Port Eizabeth. Brenda has a blog ‘Cotswold Lab Notes’ and when I read this post in November I asked her if I could use it as a guest post since it highlights the practice of ‘Mystery Skype’ in action. Mystery Skype can also be conducted using a Google hangout! 

Brenda's blog 'Cotswold Lab Notes' 

Brenda relates:
“We live in a global village. Technology has opened up so many opportunities for connection and collaboration. In the computer lab we have been taking advantage of the opportunity for global connections via the Global Classroom Project. I joined the Skype chat group for GCP. Due to time differences the group is active twenty-four hours a day.  The chat is lively and informative. 

One of the fun activities of the group is a "Mystery Skype".  Two teachers connect their classes in Google Hangout without telling their students where the other class is in the world. The children have to ask questions that elicit a yes or no answer in order to work out the location. 

Brenda's Grade 2 class during the session

The Grade 2 class in Indonesia during the session

One of the first things the students have to understand is the concept of a continent. Once we have established which continent the other class is on they then have to pinpoint the country. If they do get really stuck they are allowed to get clues such as the capital city or the hemisphere. I was surprised and delighted when one of my Grade 2 classes guessed Indonesia after they had established that it was in Asia. After trying the larger countries like China and India they began to study the map more carefully. They could barely pronounce the word Indonesia but  they learned that it's a country in Asia and they met a class of real live students from there.  Some of our students demonstrated good thinking when trying to find the answer and then I had one little girl who kept coming up and saying, "Johannesburg! or East London". It's a whole new world out there. Our students are young and many of them are lacking exposure to the world beyond our school and homes but I believe that we can offer them opportunities for enrichment beyond their present development through technology and good scaffolding.

We are coming to the end of the academic year. This has been the first year at Cotswold that I haven't worked through a set curriculum purchased by the school. It's been an adventurous year and I have learned so much. I'm looking forward to what the new year brings. Technology is changing so rapidly and the trend is towards the "Read Write" web where we discover how to construct our own new knowledge using online tools. It certainly is a great time to be involved in education.”