Symbaloo

Link to my NHD Symbaloo Webmix 

Symbaloo is one of the best technology resources I've found to assist my Student Historians and me on our National History Day journey this year. 

I learned about Symbaloo at the MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) Conference this past March. I was intrigued by its ease of use and by the company's commitment to education. My first thought was to utilize this resource for National History Day.

Over the summer I created a Symbaloo Webmix to simplify the NHD process. Developing the Webmix was a matter of breaking down the project components (thinking about possible topics of interest, understanding the theme, pre-searching, researching, writing the thesis question, learning about project types, seeing project examples, creating digital note cards, housing resources, developing an Annotated Bibliography, and learning about the contest) and creating tiles for each these web links. 

The left side of the Webmix focuses on research. I've included tiles for the National History and Michigan History Day sites, tips for getting started with NHD, links for Noodle Tools (our Language Arts-based digital writing and research platform) and our Media Specialist's links for databases and websites. Information about the theme for the year is also available. As anticipated, I've needed to add tiles once we were using this Webmix frequently. Adding more tiles is fairly simple, as is moving the tiles. (Don't forget to save, though!)

The right side of the Webmix features information about the five project types, as well as links to Nationally recognized student examples. The National History Day Webmaster even tweeted codes to me so that I could separate each category! Finding specific information on the various categories is now easier than ever. I added color coding as much as possible to organize the information more thoroughly.

My classes are combined with another History teacher's classes when we work on NHD--this Webmix is a clear and organized way to help many students easily find the information they're seeking. Symbaloo is an invaluable technology tool for the 21st Century classroom.

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