Symbaloo versus EduClipper...so many choices

Yesterday while I was distracting myself with various webapps, I found many new (to me) websites to explore. I was busily adding new bookmarks to my Diigo, (which appeals to my OCD nature to organize things into a tidy and accessible "categories"), when I stumbled upon two similar webapps. Due to my inability to rein myself in, my Diigo is becoming more unwieldy by the day as more and more webapps are added out in cyberland, and as I add more and more of them to my library. Perhaps it was kismet that I found them...

A Melding of Visuals and Databases

As my students can attest, I love to organize things via color-coding. All notes pertaining to a certain unit might be purple, all reference sheets might be florescent, the red section is for quizzes and tests and on and on and on... I think that color might be the most under-utilized resource for special learners. Enter Symbaloo...

Symbaloo is a visual social bookmarking website. While Delicious and Diigo both are formatted like typical "database" websites, allowing you to assign each website multiple tags, across different searchable categories. Symbaloo does not have this capability per se. Symbaloo's "webmixes" are akin to Diigo or Delicious "tags", with out the cross-referencing capabilities. Symbaloo is all "look and click". As one who prefers visual formats, I think I might be able to live with this.

So...I set up both symbaloo and symbalooEDU accounts (why not? They are free!). Both apps have pre-set "web-mixes" that you can add to your account. Adding one of these mixes is easy, and symbaloo has step by step, simple to follow directions. I added the K-5 MathLinks to my pages with one click:

I also was able to set up my own "Math Toolz" webmix, creating my own tiles and bookmarks fairly easily. I could color code the tiles to represent different things; blue for apps, pink for worksheets etc..:

The only downside on symbaloo is that each webmix page limits me to 100 tile tags, but I think that is something I can live with too, given that I can create as many webmix pages as I want. I will give an update on my symbaloo travails in my next blog.

I have to say that I really liked the look of educlipper and the eduteacher website. Along with my social bookmarking "clipboards", I was able to set up a blog and a my profile easily. Here is the main page layout:

I like how the eduTeacher website allows you to access all the functions of the webapp via a "backpack". I didn't like how clunky it is to load, edit and update. Clipping and posting to my clipboards was also a cumbersome task, but once I loaded the educlipit toolbar button, the process went more smoothy. I am hoping that eduTeacher is working the kinks out of the program, because I do really like the setup (and it is free)!

How this can help special learners

This type of visual formatting is great for several types of learners: those who prefer "seeing" representations rather than words, students with print difficulties, students on the spectrum. Each student could create their own specialized "toolbox" and be able to access it from anywhere. Students with print issues could have buttons for text readers, web readers and speech to text apps or mp3 files. Students with written expression difficulties could have buttons for webspiration, their favorite organizational templates in document or pdf format, transition word lists and editing checklists. Endless accessibility = endless potential for our students.