I find it helps to organize chores into categories: Things I won’t do now; Things I won’t do later; Things I’ll never do.”- Cartoon Character Maxine

I’m a fairly organized person.  My teaching friends would say I’m obsessive. That sounds so… so….accurate.  *sigh* I just like things where they go and I don’t like to waste time.  I like things alphabetized, organized, folderized, containerized, and color coded.  (I even debated on using the words color-coded since it didn’t fit my -ized theme.)

My online life is no exception.  I have a need for things to be organized and easily found.  I recently decided my bookmarks were out of control.  The “website weeds” needed to be pulled and I needed some rhyme to my reason.  I found Symbaloo.  Symbaloo is a FREE, customizable start page tool that lets users add all their most important links in a format that is easy to use. The user’s webmix appears as sleek buttons with icons or logos. The user can drag and drop items to organize them in a way that is convenient and practical. The items, or tiles, can be searched so users can find those that are most relevant to the items they are adding. Users can view their home webmix or browse webmix collections. News highlights and major news are also accessible through tabs on the Symbaloo homepage. The user can access an online resource simply by clicking one of the tiles on the webmix they are currently viewing.

Initially, I thought this is a great way to put all of my websites in one visual Scrabble board of sorts.  Then it occurred to me I could use this on the iPad.

Having the ability to create several different webmixes, you could make one just for iPad apps.  This can be shared with others, including parents of students in the class.

You could also create a webmix of various websites that you want the students to access for a particular subject your are studying.  Students would have all of those websites contained in the one webmix…no web surfing needed.  You would just make a shortcut to the webmix on the iPad screen.  Students would have instant access.  The visual aspect of the tiles is particularly beneficial to younger students.

If you are short of time or not feeling creative, you can search other webmixes created on a theme and add them to your own collection.  My Symbaloo is a combination of my own webmixes as well as some educational webmixes created by others.  I am able to access them on my iPad or on a computer.  The webmixes I’ve posted here are ones I added from the Symbaloo gallery.Symbaloo is great for those who prefer a visual format over text.  It helps me keep my ducks in a row and my obsessive side in sync.  Give it a try!

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