PE_6_Symbaloo for the Classroom

"If the student won’t come to the teacher, 

then the teacher must come to the student."

For this part of my practical experience with Symbaloo, I thought that I would explore the concept of embedding content on Symbaloo, including tutorial videos. What I found, through the process, may virtually replace my website. 

At first, I created a webmix for my students called Wekiva High School. It features the Wekiva High School website and has Wekiva Mustang wallpaper. I added my website, links to the online textbooks for my classes, and several Web 2.0 tools that I would like my students to become acquainted with using. Please feel free to take a look. Wekiva High School Webmix 

I shared the webmix publically, so that my students could find it and start personalizing the site, by adding their other teacher’s websites. The problem that I had to get past was updating. Since I am the author of the site, anytime I make changes, those changes will take place on the webmix of anyone sharing the webmix. Having the students click the “Stop Updates” link and then renaming the site with their own name, easily overcomes this.

As I started learning how to embed, the idea occurred to me that content could easily be delivered to the student by a new webmix that they could continue to share with me. If the student wants to take the content from that webmix, it can be copied to their personal webmix by clicking on the tile and simply dragging the tile to the tab of whatever webmix the student wants to place the tile on. What I created today is a webmix called Ms. Alsup. 

Ms. Alsup Webmix

On this page I experimented with the concept of embedding. By copying the link for the content, I was choosing to embed, I was able to create tiles for items on my website that I want students to access. This may seem somewhat redundant, but if I can’t get the student to my website; they may never get the content. In addition to possibly getting them to my website, Symbaloo will bring the most important content to them. In other words, if the student won’t come to the teacher, then the teacher must come to the student.

The most exciting discovery that I made was for my daily notes. I normally post them to the website as a PDF document. When I added this content to my tile, Symbaloo recognized the type of document that I was using and automatically utilized Google Docs to deliver the content right there on the Symbaloo page.  Now my students are just one click away from their work. Another thing that my students have access to, but they seldom take advantage of, is video tutoring through the textbook manufacturer. Getting to these videos is a difficult process involving numerous clicks, but with Symballo, I was able to take these links and embed them directly on my webmix with instantaneous access.

Just imagine the possibilities.  Once the student has your webmix, you control the data that is driven to that webmix.  Symballo automatically embeds from Youtube, Google Docs, Pacasa, Vimeo, Flickr, Teachertube, Schooltube,  Liveleak and Twitpic, but whether it is a supported application or not, if you have a link, you can create a tile.

While it may not replace my Website, it will certainly enhance its usability. As the Web continues to be proliferated by content, I believe it will become increasing important to find ways to harness that data and drive it in a meaningful direction.