Symbaloo

There are a variety of online tools that can be used to gather and organize resources. Trying to adopt each new tool introduced in a workshop or from exploring tools online, can be overwhelming. The best practice is to select the tools that best support the curriculum and provide professional development to effectively integrate them. This might include an understanding that a range of tools exist for a particular task, the ability to choose a tool based on its fitness, strategies for using the tool’s affordances, and knowledge of pedagogical strategies and the ability to apply those strategies for educational support.


 * ** Livebinder ** || ** Symbaloo ** ||
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Livebinders are online 3-ring binders and can be used in the classroom to organize websites, documents, movies, images into tab and subtabs for easy access to web resources. From the website, you can find a collection of binders created by teachers and students. Symbaloo is a visual dashboard that can be used to order web resources. Users may create web mixes or search a gallery of web mixes to organize tiles of similar or varying topics.
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 * ** Ideas for using Livebinders ** || ** Ideas for using Symbaloo ** ||
 * * Class resources with documents aligned to web activities
 * Presentation binder with videos and images
 * Webquest with links guiding users to internet resources
 * Collaboration binder for team projects
 * Tips and tutorial binder for reteaching || * Students create a symbaloo of tools for submitting work
 * Teacher webmix of lesson resources
 * Video tutorials to support learning and reteaching
 * Strategies, best practices
 * One link many resources to share with parents, students and co-workers ||

The "Featured Binders" tab on the site provides access to binders by subject area. Binders can be copied to the users shelf and edited. Explore binders in your area by typing a subject in the search box or click on the topics provided to explore the web resources provided in the binder. Click on the binder to view web resources. Click the "Add" tab and select Add to Shelf to add a binder to your shelf. You will be instructed to log in to add the binder. Once the binder has been added to your shelf, you will have editing rights. Symbaloo does not offer as many options as livebinders, but is a great tool for the visual learner. Once registered to the site, users can build a webmix, a compilation of tiles, or search for webmixes created by other users. Click "Add a webmix" to create a webmix. The left side provides options for creating a new webmix, the right allow the user to search for an existing webmix from the symbaloo gallery. From the symbaloo gallery, search for a webmix entitled "NC Symbols Project" or a topic from your curriculum and click add the webmix. Click a blank tile space to add a new tile (website).

How can resources be used to engage your group?