Thing 7: Content Saving and Sharing

I spent some more time on Pinterest and, although I have many friends and family who spend hours there, I continue to be a bit overwhelmed by it. I find it to be so distracting and "all over the place". Perhaps I'm just not doing something right, but whenever I'm in Pinterest I find myself looking at library ideas, then bopping over to quotes, which leads me to favorite apps, and suddenly I'm distracted by home ideas or fashion, and pretty soon I don't remember what I was looking for anyway!  Don't get me wrong, I do believe there are some great uses for it. Last year when I wanted to decorate my library in a jungle theme I searched Pinterest for jungle themed ideas and I found incredible resources. I have also used Pinterest in classes I've taught to teachers, and they've loved creating a shared board and adding their related pins. I guess I just don't get how you can stay focused with so much to look at! I do have to say this however: Pinterest is the most well-used tech tool there is that I didn't have to teach anyone! Even my most "technology-avoiding" staff members have gotten sucked into Pinterest. It's amazing!

So as far as sharing ideas goes, I guess Pinterest works pretty well if the items being shared are very visual. But for sharing links I really like Symbaloo. It is super easy to create multiple boards with links, and these are much easier to use as links than Pinterest (in my opinion). Here are the Symbaloos I've created for the students in my school. Please note that I've taken a screenshot and not embedded an actual Symbaloo, so clicking the icons will not work here. If you'd like to see how I've been using Symbaloo visit our Portable Library at: http://edu.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAABrx6580AA42ACqaeXQ==

I have created Symbaloos for high school, middle school, Kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, and preschool. I love this awesome tool!

Another wonderful tool for sharing resource links is Diigo. With the updated Diigo app you can give a group of students a space to share and annotate their notes. This works amazingly well on an iPad. On your iPad in the Safari app you can install a Diigo plugin which allows you to highlight text on a page, make annotations, and share those with others. Here is an example of how you can do that in one of the ELM databases:

Notice that you can highlight as well as putting a sticky note on the page. If you are sharing your bookmarks you can allow those you are sharing with to view all of these items.

One other method I love to use for sharing information and links is Livebinders, www.livebinders.com.  Here is an image from a Science Livebinder for 4th grade inventors projects and another for teachers using Puppetpals. 

As you can see from these two examples, Livebinders is very flexible. I like the ability or create a Livebinder and then use it as a portal. Since the web pages open inside of the Livebinders frame students are not as able to browse other pages or go to Google to search.